Preamble

The House being met, the Clerk Assistant at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence through indisposition of Mr. SPEAKER from this day's Sitting. Whereupon Colonel CLIFTON BROWN, The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

North Midland Regional Appointment

Mr. William Brown: asked the President of the Board of Trade the previous commercial or industrial experience of the person recently appointed as an assistant in the North Midland region of the factory and storage premises control?

Sir Herbert Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade the name of the officer senior to Mr. Wigley, in Nottingham, in connection with the inspection of factory space, and the officer who reports on the work of Mr. Wigley, respectively?

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Dalton): According to the particulars

supplied to my Department by the Ministry of Labour, Mr. Wigley was employed for four years in a firm of accountants, then acted for seven years as a traveller in yarns for a Nottingham firm and subsequently for four years was a partner in a Leicester firm dealing in yarns. The Deputy Regional Factory Controller, Mr. A. C. Timms, is the officer immediately senior to Mr. Wigley. The Regional Controller reports on the work of Mr. Wigley and of other assistants, after consultation with the Deputy Controller.

Mr. Brown: Is the Minister aware that the information contained in that answer is inadequate; that this particular officer had no experience before the war of the kind suggested; and, further, that, during the war, he had been acting in no industry whatever?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir; I have given the hon. Member the answer based upon information furnished to me by other Departments, and I have nothing to add to the previous answer. This officer is doing good work and will continue in his post.

Mr. Brown: In view of the dispute about the facts, is the President of the Board of Trade prepared to ask the Minister of Labour to check up on these alleged facts?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir.

Mr. Brown: I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment on the first convenient occasion.

Boot Polish

Dr. Russell Thomas: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will take steps to ensure an adequate supply of boot polish, in view of the necessity to preserve leather?

Mr. Dalton: Owing to shortage of raw material, the supply of all polishes containing wax has been restricted. But the output of boot polish is still 80 per cent. of the pre-war quantity, and there are also, of course, other materials which can be used for preserving leather.

Dr. Thomas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in some places it is almost impossible to obtain boot and shoe polish, and what is the good of putting advertisements in sundry papers and asking people to preserve leather by using polish if they cannot get it?

Mr. Dalton: I have had no such complaint. If my hon. Friend will be kind enough to pass on to me any complaint he has had, we will see whether, by redistributing the very considerable quantities of boot polish now being produced, we can assist him.

Dr. Thomas: I will pass on to the right hon. Gentleman many complaints.

Utility Furniture

Sir Perey Hurd: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, under the utility furniture scheme, the tenants of the new 3,000 farm cottages will be enabled to buy at controlled prices furniture of good design and local craftsmanship?

Mr. Dalton: Any tenants of these cottages, who qualify for permits, will be able to buy utility furniture, which is of good design and sold at controlled prices. As production of this furniture has been zoned, some is likely to be of local manufacture.

Cycle Lamp and Torch Batteries, Rugby

Mr. W. Brown: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the shortage of ordinary torch batteries and cycle batteries is still acute in the Rugby area; whether he is aware that, in order to obtain batteries which they do want, members of the public are being obliged to purchase torches that they do not want; and what steps he can take to remedy this situation?

Mr. Dalton: As regards supplies of cycle lamp batteries, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) on Tuesday last. Additional supplies of these batteries were sent to Rugby in December and January, and Rugby will receive its fair share of further increases in production both of cycle lamp and torch batteries. As regards the last part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) also on Tuesday last.

Post-War Production

Sir H. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent he is consulting with manufacturers' organisations in order to ensure that on the termination of hostilities they will be enabled to put into production up-to-date models so as to ensure a rapid development of production for the home and overseas market?

Mr. Dalton: As I informed the House on 3rd February, I have set on foot approaches to a number of industries, through their trade associations, about their post-war problems, including that mentioned by my hon. Friend.

Pyjamas (Service Personnel)

Sir Austin Hudson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether some arrangement can be made by which a non-commissioned officer or man in the Army can buy a pair of pyjamas at his own expense if he wishes to do so?

Mr. Dalton: As I informed my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Leicester (Major Lyons) on 3rd March last year, the clothing issued to other ranks is regarded as covering essential requirements. Supplies are much shorter now than they were a year ago, and I regret that it is quite impossible to make the concession for which my hon. Friend asks.

Sir A. Hudson: Does the right hon. Gentleman really say that a private soldier shall not be able to buy a pair of pyjamas at his own expense if he wishes to do so, and is not this rather reminiscent of the Middle Ages?

Mr. Dalton: I think that the arrangement suggested in the Question is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.

Sir A. Hudson: It is not a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War; it is a question of whether a man shall be allowed, at his own expense, not as an issue, to buy a pair of pyjamas without the sanction of the War Office.

Mr. Dalton: The question is whether additional coupons shall be made available for this purpose, and the shortage of the supply is such that I cannot go any further in that connection than I was able to do a year ago.

Mr. Cocks: Is the Minister aware that night attire in the Middle Ages did not cost anything?

Search Warrants

Major Lyons: asked the President of the Board of Trade to what extent his Department found embarrassment in the prosecution of the war effort by the present machinery enabling a search warrant to be obtained by ordinary process of law; and to meet what difficulties did his Department find it necessary to issue Statutory Rules and Orders No. 102 of 1943?

Sir H. Williams: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, seeing that in connection with the issue and/or execution of a search warrant there are statutory and other conditions and safeguards to be observed, he will take steps to apply the same to the machinery authorised by Section 2 of Statutory Rules and Orders No. 102 of 1943?

Mr. Levy: asked the President of the Board of Trade for what reason the ordinary procedure for search of any premises has been abandoned and special powers sought under Section 2 of the Statutory Rules and Orders No. 102 of 1943?

Mr. Dalton: The Board of Trade have not found themselves embarrassed in the prosecution of the war by any defect in the machinery relating to search warrants, which empowers the search for and seizure of evidence in connection with any crime. The powers contained in the Order referred to in the Questions are designed, not for the detection of crimes, but to assist the Board to carry out their day-to-day duties in relation to the general war-time control of industry, entrusted to them by this House.

Sir H. Williams: Do I understand from that reply that the Board of Trade consider it necessary to invade all sorts of private premises without justification and examine all documents without reference to the principal, or even the business manager being present?

Mr. Dalton: Nothing is done without justification.

Major Lyons: Is it necessary for the Board to have power to enter an employer's premises without notice and cross-examine the most junior members of the staff and search the desks of employees in their absence when no crime is contemplated?

Mr. Dalton: I do not think that that is a very accurate description of what is likely to take place.

Sir H. Williams: Why, when there is justification, cannot a search warrant be obtained instead of adopting this Gestapo method?

Mr. Levy: Is this not an Order that has not to lie upon the Table and therefore one of those Orders to which the House of Commons is raising great objections; and why could not this have been done by Order in Council instead of by Sub-Order, which does not come before this House at all and is therefore outside its jurisdiction?

Mr. Dalton: That, of course, raises a much larger question, which, I understand, some hon. Members are pursuing through the usual channels—a much wider question than the issue on the Paper. The Order about which I am asked here is an Order which I shall be prepared to defend if hon. Members pursue their intention, as I understand, of raising a Debate upon it in this House. The purpose of the Order is to enable the Board of Trade to obtain particulars and returns which are essential to our carrying on the work which has been entrusted to us by this House in connection with the war effort. It has not so far given cause for any complaint at all from any persons affected by it, and it does not differ in any marked degree, except by way of bringing together in a comprehensive form certain powers which have previously been given by other Orders in particular cases, from many Orders which have been operating for a considerable


time without giving ground for any complaint.

Mr. Levy: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Orders made in this fashion preclude the House of Commons from discussing them?

Major Lyons: Can the right hon. Gentleman say on how many occasions this Order has been acted upon?

Mr. Dalton: That Question had better be put on the Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

Board of Trade (Assistant Secretaries)

Mr. Levy: asked the President of the Board of Trade the names and previous occupations of the 10 Assistant Secretaries in his Department who were not in the public service before the war?

Mr. Dalton: As the answer contains a number of details, I will, with the permission of my hon. Friend, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Levy: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman give a resumé with regard to the qualifications of these 10 gentlemen?

Mr. Dalton: It would take rather a long time; the answer is being circulated.

Following is the statement:

Name and Occupation before entry into the Public Service.

Mr. G. C. Allen: Professor of Economics, University of Liverpool.
Mr. A. R. C. Fleming: Chartered Accountant. Managing Director, Contract Loan and Trust Corporation, Ltd.
Mr. L. T. M. Gray: Chairman, Messrs. Miller and Co., Ltd., Ironfounders, Edinburgh, and a Director of Welwyn Garden City, Ltd.
Mrs. M. Hollond: Vice-Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge.
Miss M. D. Kennedy: Lecturer in Mathematics and Bursar, Newnham College, Cambridge.
Mr. R. Pares: Fellow of AH Souls' College, Oxford.
Mr. W. E. Parker: Chartered Accountant,* Messrs. Price Waterhouse and Co.
Mr. H. A. Shannon: Lecturer in Economics, University of Bristol.
Miss M. D. Shufeldt: Secretary of the International Sugar Council set up under the International Sugar Agreement of May, 1937.
Mr. H. Tout: Lecturer in Economics, University of Bristol.

* With H.M. Forces from 1st September, 1939, until 6th May, 1940.

Overseas Trade Department (Leave)

Mr. W. Brown: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that during the annual leave year 1941–42 the Comptroller-General of the Department of Overseas Trade was allowed 44 days' annual leave; whether the instructions issued to Departments from His Majesty's Treasury, relating to the restriction of annual leave to civil servants in war-time, are of general application or exclude members of particular grades; and, if the former, what steps he proposes to take in regard to the failure of the Department of Overseas Trade to give effect to these instructions?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Kingsley Wood): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. Morgan) on 26th January. The instructions issued to Departments from the Treasury relating to the restriction of annual leave are of general application and do not exclude members of any grades; but Departments may, and very exceptionally do, allow some additional leave where they are satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so.

Mr. Brown: Is the Chancellor satisfied that in the case which gave rise to the Question discretion was exercised by the Department?

Sir K. Wood: I think so. I understand my right hon. Friend explained that the leave was given because the gentleman in question needed medical treatment because of concussion due to enemy action.

Mr. Brown: Does not the right hon. Gentleman understand that there is a distinction in practice between annual leave and sick leave, and that this Question refers to the grant of 44 days' annual leave?

Sir K. Wood: I appreciate that.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENEMY-OCCUPIED EUROPE (FOOD SUPPLIES)

Sir Henry Morris-Jones: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare whether he has considered the petition signed by over 3,000


residents in Colwyn Bay asking His Majesty's Government to grant permits for such relief schemes of food to enemy-controlled territories as can be satisfactorily carried out by the International and Swedish Red Cross; and whether he has any statement to make?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Warfare (Mr. Dingle Foot): My Noble Friend has received and considered this petition. As regards the possibility of allowing food to pass through the blockade, I have nothing to add to the many statements I have already made on this subject.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Could not the Government reconsider this matter; will my hon. Friend say whether, if Swedish and Portuguese shipping is available and it does not affect our war effort, he will reconsider this matter; and does he appreciate the fact that these people will not care whether we win the war at all?

Mr. Foot: I certainly do not agree with the last part of the Supplementary Question. Though shipping is an important consideration, the most important consideration is the benefit, direct or indirect, which the enemy would certainly obtain if there was any raising of the blockade.

Sir H. Morris-Jones: Is it not a fact—these figures have been given to us—that the stuff which has already been sent through has not benefited the enemy in any way?

Mr. Foot: I do not know what figures my hon. Friend has in mind, but I think any importation through the blockade must bring a certain degree of benefit to the enemy.

Mr. Edmund Harvey: Will my hon. Friend assure the House that the Government are keeping the situation under review and have not closed their minds to the possibility of some form of controlled relief?

Mr. Foot: The situation is kept constantly—indeed, daily—under review.

Mr. John Dugdale: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there are more valuable duties for our shipping than sending this stuff through blockaded areas?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY

Requisitioned Hall (Repair)

Mr. James Griffiths: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will give the cost of repairing a hall now in possession of the military authorities, the name of which has been sent him; under whose authority men were brought from London to repair the damage when it could have been done by local labour; and whether he can give the terms upon which this hall is requisitioned?

The Secretary of State for War (Sir James Grigg): The contract for the repairs was given to a local firm, but as flooring specialists were found to be needed, and as these were not available locally, the repairs were in the end carried out by the London firm who originally laid the floor. The repairs cost £154. The cost was met from private not public funds. The hall is requisitioned under Defence Regulations and the rental compensation paid is £850 a year.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the Minister aware that four men were sent down to work from eight o'clock in the morning until 12 at night, with all the electric lights full on, with the sole purpose of making this hall fit for dancing? Does he realise that when tens of thousands of people have been transferred to work elsewhere, this is a shocking waste which has scandalised local public opinion?

Sir J. Grigg: I am aware of that, but I am informed that a good light was necessary to carry out the repairs. Nevertheless, in the light of what the hon. Gentleman has Said, I think the real question is not so much the contract for repairs but whether the War Office ought to retain the building at all, and I am going into that.

Mr. Griffiths: Is the hall needed for this purpose?

Sir J. Grigg: That is the real question which arises and the one I am considering but that is not the Question on the Paper.

Casualties (Unofficial Telegrams)

Mr. Astor: asked the Secretary of State for War whether, in view of the fact that a specific pledge was given that censorship would only be used for security reasons, he will amend the present rules so as to allow persons to communicate


directly with the families of persons who are wounded in so far as facilities for communication are available?

Sir J. Grigg: I think the present rule to which I referred in my answer to my hon. Friend on 9th February was introduced by the military authorities in the Middle East as an administrative regulation for the reasons then explained, and not as a measure of censorship in the technical meaning of that word. As I then said, I propose to adhere to the rule, but if my hon. Friend knows of any case in which it appears to him that the rule has been applied in a manner which goes beyond its intention, perhaps he will send me particulars, so that I can refer the case to the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East, for inquiry.

Mr. Astor: Does my right hon. Friend realise that I am not asking about a particular case but about a principle? We have been told that the censorship is only to be used for security reasons, but it is now being used to censor matters of opinion. Why should the families of soldiers who have been wounded be denied the right to information from friends in the same way as civilian casualties?

Sir J. Grigg: There is only a limited amount of traffic which can be carried by the telegraphic communications from the Middle East, and I have not the slightest doubt that the military authorities are entitled to regulate the priorities of traffic on the various means of communication. Apart from that, I think it creates a good deal of discomfort and grief for relatives if they get information which, possibly, is not accurate, before they get it from official sources.

Mr. Astor: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to say that the information from his official sources is always accurate? Is he aware that I have suggested in the Question that this should be allowed only so far as communications are available?

Sir J. Grigg: I think the information from official sources is, on the whole, a great deal more accurate than that which is sent from private sources.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: Is my right hon. Friend aware that except for this one instance, telegraphic communication is not rationed in any way? Does he not

know himself of numerous cases in which the private information which has been sent has been more accurate than the official information? What business is it of the War Office to say what should or should not be told to relatives for reasons other than security?

Churchill Tanks

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for War the horse-power of the engines fitted to the A.22 tanks sent to Libya; and the size of engine designed to be fitted to this tank as a standard?

Sir J. Grigg: All Churchills used so far against the enemy have been fitted with a 325 h.p. Bedford engine. The answer to the second part of the Question it is not in the public interest to disclose.

Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this tank was designed to be equipped with a 600 h.p. engine and is it not due to the gross inefficiency on the part of the Tank Board that it is still not so fitted?

Sir J. Grigg: I am not prepared to add anything to the answer I have just given.

Mr. Stokes: The Germans know all about it.

Auxiliary Territorial Service

Sir Reginald Clarry: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is satisfied that the number of women joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service as volunteers during the past few months justify the money expended on special showrooms and offices; and whether he can conveniently state the approximate cost per volunteer?

Sir J. Grigg: For the reason given to my hon. Friend on nth February, I regret that it is not possible to state the cost per volunteer, but the numbers of volunteers presenting themselves for enrolment is most satisfactory, and these special arrangements are at least partly responsible for this state of affairs.

Sir R. Clarry: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the expenditure incurred is worth while?

Sir J. Grigg: So far as the past is concerned, yes, but I think the time may well have come when the matter should be reconsidered for the future, and that I will do.

Sir R. Clarry: Has my right hon. Friend any figures of the cost per capita, per volunteer?

Sir J. Grigg: I have answered that question.

Mr. Thorne: asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of a young girl belonging to the Auxiliary Territorial Service, by the name of Private Stannard, who saved the life of one of her companions, Private Davies, who fell into a river; and whether the girl will be commended for her courage?

Sir J. Grigg: Yes, Sir. My attention has been called to Private Stannard's gallant action. My hon. Friend will be glad to know that she has been officially commended by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief in Western Command orders and that the Royal Humane Society have awarded her the Society's testimonial on parchment.

Embarking Officers' Baggage

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that baggage of embarking officers left overnight on a tender is sometimes plundered by unknown persons; and how many cases have been reported to his Department?

Sir J. Grigg: Only one such case has come to the notice of my Department, and that unofficially.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that Royal Engineer officers in one case lost five new shirts and a camera and in another case——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is now giving information, not asking for it.

Case for Inquiry

Mr. Ellis Smith: asked the Secretary of State for War the circumstances of the death of Victor Bragg, Stoke-on-Trent; why it was left to the parents to take legal action after which they were awarded by the High Court £214 compensation for the loss of their son; and as £129 of this went in legal charges, will he have a full investigation made and give the case further consideration?

Sir J. Grigg: This case is under investigation, and I will communicate with my hon. Friend in due course.

Beveridge Report (Army Bureau of Current Affairs)

Mr. Graham White: asked the Secretary of State for War whether the pamphlets dealing with the Report of the Beveridge Committee, prepared by the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, will now be circulated in accordance with the original plan?

Sir J. Grigg: I am at present considering the possibility of producing a more comprehensive brief than the earlier version in a form suitable to serve as the basis for A.B.C.A. discussions.

Mr. White: In view of what the Minister has just said, would he now care to say anything to illuminate a little further the statement he previously made to the effect that this pamphlet would be withheld until Parliamentary discussion had taken place?

Sir J. Grigg: I think I have said enough to illuminate the question abundantly.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman, if he does circulate anything on this subject, include a list of Members of the House who voted against the Labour Party Amendment last week?

Mr. Cocks: In view of the fact that the Report has been killed by the Government, will the Minister circulate a memorial card with the sympathy of Lord Croft and the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Sir H. Williams: Will the Minister also consider circularising my speech on the subject?

Mr. Thorne: Is the Minister aware that circulating this information will cause more trouble than it has already caused in this House?

Sir J. Grigg: That is certainly a consideration. The Supplementary Questions which have been asked show what an extremely fine knife edge I shall have to balance on.

Pioneer Corps (Aliens)

Mr. Vernon Bartlett: asked the Secretary of State for War whether all men in the Alien Pioneer Corps who are sent overseas are now given identity papers and pay-books which make them indistinguishable from soldiers of British birth?

Sir J. Grigg: My hon. Friend's suggestions are now under consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Herring Fishing Industry

Mr. Boothby: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) whether the future of the herring fishing industry is now receiving the attention of His Majesty's Government; and whether any steps have been taken or are contemplated, to ensure that we shall be in a position to meet the demand for cured herring which will arise on the Continent after the conclusion of hostilities;
(2) whether any decision has been reached as to the type of craft which should replace the obsolescent drifter fleets; and whether he will consult with the Admiralty with a view to securing the present construction of a sufficient number of craft suitable for conversion to herring fishing in order to meet the requirements of the immediate post-war period;
(3) whether he will call a conference of representatives of those engaged in different branches of the herring fishing industry to consider the possibilities of increasing co-operation between the fishermen, of eliminating redundant competition between the curers and of improving the sales organisation of the industry?

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston): The Government have the future of the herring industry prominently before them, and, as the hon. Member is aware, a Committee has been appointed which is at present examining the post-war problems of the industry. Preliminary recommendations have already been made by the Committee, and the hon. Member may rest assured that the various matters to which he refers are not being overlooked. As regards the suggestion for a conference, I understand that the Committees are obtaining evidence on all aspects of the problem from the different branches of the industry.

Mr. Boothby: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it would be more satisfactory if he pursued these investigations with regard to the future of the industry by means of direct contacts with those engaged in the industry rather than through the medium of a Committee which does not know much about it and the report of which cannot be published?

Mr. Johnston: There are only parts of the report which may not be published, as the hon. Member knows, for security reasons.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Is my right hon. Friend in touch now with the Russian Government, in view of the present favourable circumstances, as Russia used to be one of the greatest markets for our herring industry?

Mr. Johnston: Obviously that is a matter which is before the Committee.

Mr. McKinlay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it has been stated by those who know the industry that the Government have mobilised all the red herring from now onwards?

Water Supply, Outer Hebrides

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether any comprehensive survey of the water supply position and requirements of the Outer Hebrides is now being undertaken or being prepared with a view to providing an adequate supply of clean water for all communities in the Outer Isles; and whether he will make a statement of his policy and proposals in this respect, in view of the many inadequate, inconvenient and contaminated supplies now in use?

Mr. Johnston: The Outer Hebrides are included in a programme of investigation into water supply resources which the technical staff of the Department of Health for Scotland are undertaking. When the results are available I shall consider with the local authorities what measures are necessary for the improvement of supplies in the islands, of whose requirements I am fully aware.

Pre-fabricated Houses

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has considered the request of the Provost of Stornoway to the Scottish Department of Health that the erection of a number of timber houses be undertaken now as at least a temporary aid to solving local overcrowding and with a view to testing their suitability to Hebridean conditions for possible further construction; and whether he will make a statement?

Mr. Johnston: The suggestion made to me was that one or two pre-fabricated


houses should be built experimentally in Stornoway to test whether they were suitable for local conditions. The work of the Burt Committee includes the technical examination of pre-fabrication and timber house construction in relation to the varying climatic conditions in different parts of Great Britain. The report of this Committee will therefore indicate what practical experiments can be encouraged with the greatest advantage, and when it is available I will consider the Stornoway suggestion further.

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any observations to make regarding the prefabricated houses completed at Fenwick, Ayrshire; and whether there is any immediate prospect of a supply of these houses to meet the urgent needs of South Ayrshire?

Mr. Johnston: I am greatly interested in the new methods and materials employed in building the houses to which the hon. Member refers. Full particulars of the houses have been furnished to the Burt Committee, which is investigating new methods of house construction, and I hope that it will be possible for the Committee to furnish a report on the houses at an early date. With regard to the county's housing needs, Ayrshire has been allocated 20 of the houses to be provided in rural areas in Scotland under the limited programme of new building I recently announced. In addition, arrangements are being made for getting more labour and materials to expedite the completion of the 168 houses which the county council have at present under construction.

Mr. Mathers: Are these houses limited strictly to agricultural workers?

Mr. Johnston: I would like to have notice of that Question.

Executive Officer, South Ayr Agricultural Committee

Mr. Sloan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland why the services of Mr. Laird, executive officer and technical adviser to the South Ayr Agricultural Committee, have been terminated, as he has been agricultural organiser for Ayrshire since 1924, gave entire satisfaction to the governors of the West of Scotland Agricultural College and farmers alike

and, as a result of his experience and training, considerably increased production on each farm has resulted?

Mr. Johnston: The change of executive officer was made on the recommendation of the agricultural executive committee. Apparently there were some differences between the committee and Mr. Laird which could not be reconciled, and in the interests of harmonious administration it was felt desirable to arrange a change. Mr. Laird's position as county organiser under the West of Scotland Agricultural College, and his remuneration, remain unaffected.

Mr. Sloan: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether Mr. Laird was heard or any evidence taken from him before the decision was made to terminate his appointment?

Mr. Johnston: Yes, Sir. I believe he was present at a meeting on Thursday, 21st January, where his explanations and evidence were heard.

Mr. Sloan: Are we to understand that only the ex parte statements of certain members of the executive committee were taken before this appointment was terminated, and is my right hon. Friend aware of the tremendous indignation that exists at the present time among the Ayrshire farmers because of this action by the Department?

Mr. Johnston: The point is that the agricultural executive committee, after hearing Mr. Laird and after negotiations——

Mr. Sloan: That is not true.

Mr. Johnston: After those negotiations——

Mr. Sloan: There were no negotiations.

Mr. Johnston: I am giving my answer. It is that Mr. Laird was present at this meeting, that he was heard, and that after he was heard the committee, by a majority, decided in the interests of harmonious administration that it would be better to change the executive officer.

Mr. Neil Maclean: Does not my right hon. Friend feel that the way out of the difficulty in this area would be to remove the entire committee and appoint a new one?

Mr. Gallacher: Are we to understand that the Minister, who is openly responsible, endorsed the dismissal of this man without hearing him or having any statement from him?

Mr. Johnston: No, Sir. I can only say what I have already said, that the agricultural executive committee made a recommendation and on the evidence before me I decided to accept it.

Mr. Sloan: As the appointment was made by the Secretary of State and is not under the control of the executive committee, what steps, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have I and my hon. Friends to take——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member may ask a question, but he may not make a speech.

Mr. Sloan: Is the Secretary of State prepared to have an impartial inquiry into this matter?

Mr. Johnston: If the hon. Member can give me any grounds upon which an inquiry would be justified, I would certainly hold it.

Mr. Sloan: I am far from satisfied.

Small Holdings (Service Men)

Mr. Neil Maclean: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is prepared to relax the statutory requirement of the Small Landholders Act requiring a landholder to cultivate his holding by himself or his family in view of the large number of smallholders who are serving in the Forces and whose families are either in the Forces or are engaged in essential war work, as the continued application of that condition during the war will impose a hardship upon those holders who cannot meantime carry out the condition; and what other steps he is taking to safeguard the rights of those who are serving the country in other spheres of action?

Mr. Johnston: I am not aware of any case in which a landlord has sought to dispossess a landholder on the ground of absence on war or other essential national service. If there were any evidence of a need to protect landholders from hardship in the circumstances mentioned, I should certainly consider immediate action.

Mr. Maclean: Will the Secretary of State get in touch with the Chairman of the Land Court, who might give him some instances where these matters have already

arisen and where it is very awkward for him to deal with them owing to the hardships that are imposed upon these families?

Mr. Johnston: Certainly, I will make inquiries of the Chairman of the Land Court to see whether any evidence of this kind is available.

Petrol Prices, Outer Hebrides

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power the price of petrol to users in the Outer Hebrides and the amount by which this exceeds mainland prices; the reasons for the higher prices paid in the Outer Hebrides; and when he proposes to end this discrimination against the islands?

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): The retail price of petrol in Lewis is 2s. 4d. per gallon, which is 1½d. per gallon higher than the price on the North Mainland of Scotland. In the other islands of the Outer Hebrides the price is rather higher. I cannot agree that there has been any discrimination against the islands, as His Majesty's Government has simply approved the continuation of the pre-war practice of charging to petrol consumers in remote areas part of the additional distribution costs.

Mr. MacMillan: In view of the fact that all the petrol used in these islands is used in one or another form of public service, why should there be this extra charge?

Major Lloyd George: It is purely the continuation of a practice which was accepted before the war. The difference is exactly the same as existed then, and it is not confined to petrol.

Mr. MacMillan: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think that if a wrong practice existed before the war it should be continued now?

Major Lloyd George: I do not accept that this was a wrong practice.

Mr. MacMillan: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give me any real justification why the people in the Outer Hebrides should be penalised by having to pay higher prices?

Major Lloyd George: It is very much more difficult to get the commodity there and much more expensive.

Mr. MacMillan: Is it not the case that certain rationed foods and various other commodities are sold there at the same price as in other parts of the country?

Oral Answers to Questions — COLLIERY CANTEENS

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: asked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether he can make a statement as to the general progress of arrangements for the provision of full meals in miners' canteens; and can he provide a table of comparative figures?

Major Lloyd George: As the answer involves a tabular statement, I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Walkden: What practical steps does the Miners' Welfare Commission take where the use of the canteen falls below 50 per cent.? Is anything done to convince the miner's wife of the good value that the canteens offer?

COLLIERY CANTEENS


Table showing progress of provision of full meal canteens.


Date
Full Meal Canteens.




In preparation.
Under Construction.
In operation.




No. of Collieries.
Men catered for.
No. of Collieries.
Men to be catered for.
No. of Collieries.
Men to be catered for.


At









1st January, 1942
…
49
55,396
69
72,532
243
222,021


1st April, 1942
…
61
69,611
108
104,839
235
203,253


1st July, 1942
…
90
102,099
154
137,919
187
163,766


1st October, 1942
…
132
135,312
176
145,657
144
137,107


1st January, 1943
…
207
195,157
155
128,553
121
112,877


1st February, 1943
…
226
215,205
151
124,601
107
99,009

Oral Answers to Questions — FLOWERS (CARRIAGE BY RAIL)

Commander King-Hall: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport whether he is aware that the availability of cut flowers in cities has an aesthetic value which makes a substantial contribution to the morale and cheerfulness of the people when displayed in houses and offices; and whether he will consider making arrangements whereby flowers may be sent by rail when space is available which would otherwise not be occupied?

Major Lloyd George: That is not an easy question to answer, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. The best way to convince anyone that a thing is good is to get him to try it.

Following is the statement:

As 1st February, 1943, full meal canteens were in operation serving 226 collieries employing 215,205 men. In addition, full meal canteens are under construction at 151 collieries employing 124,601 men and in various stages of preparation at 107 collieries employing 99,009 men. Altogether, full meal provision will thus have been made for about 60 per cent. of the men employed in the industry, such proportion representing the present known extent of the demand from the men for this kind of service. Progress is of course affected by the shortage of building labour, but it is hoped that the completion of this programme of full meal canteens will have been substantially effected by the autumn of this year. A table of comparative figures is given below:

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport (Mr. Noel-Baker): I sympathise with my hon. and gallant Friend's purpose, but I regret that his proposal is open to a number of practical objections. Apart from other considerations, the demands on the railways for the conveyance of essential traffic are so heavy that, on this ground alone, I should not feel justified in relaxing the present prohibition on the transport of flowers by rail.

Commander King-Hall: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that at present it is impossible to send a small basket of flowers by rail but a passenger can carry them in his luggage?

Mr. Noel-Baker: I am afraid that transport requires so much labour that we really cannot permit it. Apart from that, I think the hon. and gallant Gentleman has not perhaps seen the last Order made controlling the transport of flowers by passengers.

Sir Alfred Beit: Does the hon. Gentleman seriously contend that suburban passenger trains are so very overloaded that they could not carry some of this traffic?

Mr. Noel-Baker: We have to regard the business of flower-growing as a whole. We cannot favour one set of people at the expense of another.

Oral Answers to Questions — NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

Mr. Arthur Duckworth: asked the Minister of Information whether he has now concluded his consultations with the Service Departments concerned with reference to a newspaper article, details of which have been communicated to him; and, in view, of the fact that this article conveyed valuable information to the enemy and was calculated to endanger the lives of officers and men and to prejudice the success of future operations, whether he has now any statement to make?

The Minister of Information (Mr. Brendan Bracken): Yes, Sir. I think that my hon. Friend's description of the article in question is rather exaggerated. But the Service Department concerned is conveying a severe warning to the author of the article as to the dangers of any publication which takes a risk on a matter of this sort.

Mr. Duckworth: In all the circumstances of the case, is the right hon. Gentleman really satisfied with the present system of voluntary censorship, and how does it come about that the author of this article was in possession of information of this kind?

Mr. Bracken: I am absolutely satisfied with the system of censorship. The information

that the author in this case possessed was obtained by a very close study, as a technical journalist, of air matters.

Mr. Shinwell: What is all this about? Who is the author, and what is the article?

Mr. Bracken: That point was not raised in the Question. The hon. Gentleman had better put another down.

Mr. Shinwell: Is it right that a Question should be put down of a mysterious character containing no information?

Mr. Bracken: I am not responsible for the form of the Question.

Mr. Duckworth: Is the right hon. Gentleman really satisfied that no incident of this sort will occur in future?

Mr. Bracken: I can never make any prediction of what may happen in the future, but we have always had the fullest co-operation of the Press in working the censorship, and I do not propose to suggest any change.

Mr. Mack: Is it not the function of the Minister of Information to give no information?

Mr. Bracken: Perhaps, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — CVIL DEFENCE

Fire Guard Duties (Housewives)

Major Lloyd: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider amending the Civil Defence (Exemption Tribunals) Order, under which military service (hardships) committees consider applications for exemption from fire prevention duties, in order to ensure that sympathetic consideration will be given in the case of housewives actively engaged in the Women's Voluntary Service and similar activities where fire watching will seriously handicap the services voluntarily rendered by such women?

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peake): I understand that it is the practice of the tribunals to give most careful consideration to all relevant factors in reaching decisions on applications for exemption on grounds of


exceptional hardship. My right hon. Friend is however proposing to include in the forthcoming amending Order special provisions to facilitate the decision of applications submitted by women with heavy household responsibilities.

Mr. Maclean: Will this Order be laid on the Table?

Mr. Peake: I could not say.

Water Storage, London

Mr. Hammersley: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that many of the emergency water tanks erected in London boroughs for the use of the National Fire Service, on the authority of the Regional Commissioners, are faulty in design and construction; whether he has considered representations on the matter, and what steps are being taken to prevent waste of public money involved in the continuance of types of construction which have proved faulty?

Mr. Peake: In the area referred to construction in puddled clay was used for some basins. Puddled clay basins offer, in suitable soil, a rapid, inexpensive and quite satisfactory method of construction for water storage. It is not always easy to be sure in advance that they will be a success in a particular soil, but when the basins in question were planned, it was the view of the technical advisers at Regional Headquarters, and of the local authority, that in this area construction in puddled clay would be satisfactory. This has not proved to be the case and remedial measures now in progress are likely to lead to the total cost exceeding, by some 20 per cent. the expenditure which would have been incurred had different methods been used from the first. In the light of the general experience with this form of construction it has already been virtually abandoned.

Mr. Hammersley: May we take it that this kind of construction in this area, which is found to be unsatisfactory, will now be discontinued and that no attempt will be made to insist on this unsatisfactory type of construction of static water tanks?

Mr. Peake: I can understand the hon. Member's concern that the soil of Willesden should have proved less suitable than the authorities anticipated, and I can give him the assurance for which he asks.

Captain Godfrey Nicholson: Has the Department consulted experts in the manufacture of dew ponds?

Mr. Peake: I could not say.

Official Secrets Act (Prosecution)

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the case of Arthur T. Williams, a Government employee, convicted at the Old Bailey on 16th February of contravening the Officials Secrets Act; how it was that the man was allowed to take out of the Government offices secret papers which he handed over to a Mr. Morris, who was in collusion with him; and what he intends doing about the matter?

Mr. Peake: The trial of this case took place in camera by direction of the learned Judge, and a statement giving all the information that could properly be disclosed without detriment to the interests of national security has since been issued to the Press. I cannot add anything to that statement. I can, however, assure my hon. Friend that steps have been taken to ensure so far as possible that leakages of the kind disclosed in this case shall not occur again.

Mr. Thorne: How it is that this man was allowed to take these documents away from the office?

Mr. Peake: I really cannot add anything to the statement which was issued after consultation with the learned Judge who tried the case It is a very full statement. The man had been employed in the office concerned for a very long period, and, of course, the expeditious despatch of any public business depends upon having confidence in someone.

Mr. Maxton: Was it by the direction of the learned Judge that there was delay of over a week between the proceedings and the statement in the Press?

Mr. Peake: No, Sir. The delay, which was rather more than the hon. Member indicates, was due in the first place to the time that has to be allowed to elapse during which notice of appeal can be given, and in the second place there had to be consultations between the authorities and the learned Judge as to the actual text of the statement to be issued.

Mr. Maxton: Is it now judicial procedure that a case can be heard in camera and sentence promulgated and complete secrecy observed about it?

Mr. Peake: I quite agree that trial in camera is always bound to be unsatisfactory, but I think the hon. Member can take it that His Majesty's Judges, who have to be satisfied before a trial in camera takes place, do not lean in the direction of protecting either His Majesty's Ministers or the officials of public Departments.

Mr. Maxton: I am not questioning trials in camera, but is it now permissible to have complete secrecy about the result of a trial, and the fact that a trial has taken place, for a matter of weeks?

Mr. Peake: It is, of course, possible, but in this case the learned Judge, quite properly, before passing sentence in camera, insisted upon there being a full statement made subsequently for publication.

Mr. A. Edwards: Can people be convicted and sent to prison——

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is a general question, not arising out of one specific case.

Mr. W. Brown: Can we have an assurance that there are no cases where trial has take place in camera where the decision has not ultimately been released to the Press?

Oral Answers to Questions — OLD OAK CLUB AND INSTITUTE, HAMMERSMITH (POLICE VISIT)

Mr. Thorne: asked the Home Secretry whether he can give any information in connection with the police raid made on a Hammersmith club; how many names were taken; and whether any of them were women and men of military age?

Mr. Peake: I presume my hon. Friend is referring to the Old Oak Club and Institute, which was entered by police officers under a search warrant on 13th February, there being reason to suspect illegal sales of intoxicating liquor. The action to be taken is at present under consideration. The number of persons on the premises was 219, which included 48 men and 21 women within the age

limits for service with the Forces, but the police are satisfied that all of them were engaged on essential work, and were not evading military service.

Mr. Thorne: Does it not seem rather strange that this number of men and women in this club were of military age and doing practically no work of any importance?

Mr. Peake: Most of the men in this club, I am informed, are employed on the Great Western Railway, and most of the women on munition undertakings in the district.

Mr. Thorne: But that is ordinary work; that is not work outside their ordinary employment.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE (DISCIPLINE)

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that an order issued recently by the Provost Marshal, Royal Air Force, to enforce discipline is being used to justify petty interferences with the normal freedom of Service men and women and that the numerous trifling offences cause a large amount of work, due to the duplication of such reports, for the clerical staff; and will he take steps to see such orders are not unreasonably interpreted?

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour): I am satisfied that the instructions of the Provost Marshal are reasonably interpreted, and that there is no avoidable clerical work involved in disposing of the cases brought to notice.

Mr. Edwards: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that women have recently been reported for wearing their stockings inside out and such trivial offences, and since these recent orders went out the clerical work has been almost doubled?

Captain Balfour: I have no information about the case of the stockings. My information is that the clerical work has not increased materially. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that smartness of bearing and observance of rules and regulations, even in minor matters, in a Service body have long been accepted as an integral part of Service life.

Mr. Edwards: If I give the right hon. and gallant Gentleman information about this matter, will he look into it again?

Captain Balfour: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Moelwyn Hughes: With regard to the Provost Marshal who is head of the Royal Air Force police, what experience, if any, did he have of police work before he was appointed to the post?

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES (AIR SERVICE)

Sir Robert Rankin: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether the air services of the British Overseas Airways Corporation in the British West Indies are being accorded complete freedom of action?

Captain Balfour: British Overseas Airways Corporation do not operate air services in the British West Indies, apart from occasional flights between this country and U.S.A. via Trinidad.

Oral Answers to Questions — PARLIAMENT (PROLONGATION)

Mr. De la Bère: asked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make a statement regarding the Government's intentions as to prolonging the life of this Parliament beyond 1943?

The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): No, Sir. My hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot at this date forecast the conditions likely to prevail when the present life of Parliament expires in November.

Mr. De la Bère: Is it not a fact that there was a tinge of unrest about the political atmosphere last week, and is my right hon. Friend aware that the public dislike these political controversies while the war is on?

Mr. Attlee: That seems to me to be another matter.

Mr. Mack: Is it not true that the life of Parliament has already expired?

Oral Answers to Questions — PURCHASE TAX

Mr. Parker: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will allow hospitals to replenish their stocks of linen without the payment of Purchase Tax?

Sir K. Wood: No, Sir. It remains an essential principle of the Purchase Tax that there must be no class of privileged buyers of chargeable goods.

Major Lyons: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will indicate, in relation to a sale when the wholesale value for Purchase Tax has been settled by the Commissioners, by what means, by whom, and on what basis, the adjustment of tax is made when it is found that the actual price does not represent the statutory value?

Sir K. Wood: When the wholesale value has been fixed by the Commissioners at an amount in excess of the actual sale price the registered seller is accountable for the tax on that value.

Mr. Granville: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider reducing the Purchase Tax on bicycles?

Oral Answers to Questions — CARTRIDGE DIES (PRICE)

Mr. A. Edwards: asked the Minister of Supply whether he is aware that cartridge dies, for which the Ministry pays 16s., are delivered by sub-contractors at 4s.; and will he take steps to see that the 12s. per die is returned to the Government?

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Mr. Peat): From the information given, it is not possible to identify the transactions referred to. If the hon. Member will let me have details, including the name and address of the contractors or sub-contractors concerned, the matter will be investigated.

Mr. Edwards: If it is a fact that there is a rake-off of 12s. per die, will the hon. Gentleman see that it is returned?

Mr. Peat: I cannot undertake to see that it is returned, but we will go into the cost.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAMAICA (NEW CONSTITUTION PROPOSALS)

Mr. Arthur Greenwood: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to a new Constitution for Jamaica?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): Yes, Sir. I have asked the Governor to place before the Legislative Council proposals for a new Constitution. These proposals are embodied in a despatch which has been printed as a Command Paper. Copies will be available in the Vote Office before the House rises to-day.

Mr. Creech Jones: Do the proposals make provision for a larger measure of responsible government, and is this a prelude to further constitutional reform in the other West Indian Colonies?

Colonel Stanley: If the hon. Gentleman will read the proposals, I think he will be satisfied on that point.

Mr. Riley: In submitting the new proposals to the Legislative Council, is the Colonial Secretary prepared to consider representations from public bodies in Jamaica so as to have their views upon the proposed changes?

Colonel Stanley: I had a document which was signed not only by all members of the Legislative Council, but by representatives of bodies outside, and it is my reply to this document that forms the basis of this despatch.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. A. Bevan: May I ask the Leader of the House a question on Business? He will recollect that a week last Thursday, just before the Prime Minister made his statement on the war, a discussion took place between him and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood) as to a Debate on the war. It was then understood that further consideration would be given to the matter. When this question is being discussed through the usual channels, will the right hon. Gentleman take into account that there are some Members who wish to have an early opportunity of a Debate, so that he can make an announcement in his next statement of Business?

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden): I certainly did say that I would consider our future practice, but we had a full day on the last occasion in debating the conduct of the war, and I do not know that in the present state of Business I could possibly give

any undertaking for an early date unless there were very strong demands from all parts of the House.

Mr. Bevan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recollect that my right hon. Friend confined himself to two or three sentences on that occasion, not because of universal satisfaction with the Prime Minister's statement, but because the time available then was much too limited to discuss a matter of that sort, and that hon. Members in all parts of the House wanted to have an opportunity of examining the Prime Minister's statement so as to give greater consideration to it? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there is now a demand for a Debate on the conduct of the war?

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. Eden: I said that I would consider the practice—and the Prime Minister agreed—for future statements, but, as regards the Prime Minister's last statement, which met with general approval in the House, there was absolutely no demand for a further Debate, and I have received none from any quarter. In view of the legislative Business before us, I could give no undertaking for a Debate on that statement at an early date.

Mr. Shinwell: I am rather mystified at my right hon. Friend's statement. Was it not generally understood after my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield had made certain observations on the form of the last Debate and restrained himself on the subject matter of the Prime Minister's statement, that there was to be a future occasion for a general Debate? That is within my recollection.

Mr. Eden: My hon. Friend speaks within his recollection, and I speak within mine. My recollection of the position is quite clear. It is that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wake-field asked whether in future we could not consider a different practice. I certainly gave no undertaking that, after having discussed the war situation on the Prime Minister's statement for a whole day. I would soon make available another day. I certainly could not give such an undertaking, and I could not make such an arrangement at the present time; nor have I received any demand for it through the usual channels.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that such Debates are desired by only about half-a-dozen Members of this House and by the German Secret Service?

Mr. Stokes: Does my right hon. Friend not recollect that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield stated in his short remarks on that occasion that it might become necessary to ask for a further discussion, and in view of the fact that events in Tunisia have turned out so differently from what the Prime Minister said, and particularly in view of the most unsatisfactory statement made to-day by the Secretary of State for War about the tanks—[Interruption]—well, soldiers are dying out there through incompetence in tank technical matters—does he not think it high time that we had a full and proper Debate?

Mr. Eden: I would only observe in reply that, of course, if the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and all parties in the House desire a Debate, then the matter will be examined. I have had no such request, and I cannot help feeling that a public discussion at this time would be a very poor contribution to help the soldiers in Tunisia.

Mr. Greenwood: I do object to the existing procedure for Debates on the war situation, which is never satisfactory as they are conducted now, but if my recollection is right I did say, I think in the presence of what Members were not moving out at the moment after the Prime Minister had sat down, that I did not intend on that occasion to pursue the matter further, but did indicate a desire, which I thought was fairly widespread, for a fairly early resumption of the discussion.

Earl Winterton: May I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House if he will correct a rather unfortunate terminological expression which he used just now, in view of the events last week, and refer to my right hon. Friend not as Leader of the Opposition but as Leader of the Labour Party?

Mr. Eden: I am sorry. I apologise for my inexactitude.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of what happened last week on the Labour Party

Amendment, is my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield not now regarded as the Leader of the Opposition?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Deputy-Speaker rose——

Mr. Maxton: I can sympathise, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, with your desire to get away from, this subject, but really it is most important that we should know where we are. I am not associating myself with a demand for a day for this particular Business, but the right hon. Gentleman has told us that our programme is so congested that we cannot expect days for anything. I keep my eyes open, and I want to know what is the heavy business which the House has to face between now and Easter, which this year is at a later date than usual?

Mr. Bevan: On a point of Order. Has it not been apparent to the House that on very many occasions arrangements which are made through the usual channels are repugnant to quite a considerable number of the Members of the House, On this occasion, as my hon. Friends on this side of the House will recollect, we desisted from intervening in that Debate on the understanding that there was going to be a further Debate. So it is not a matter of half a dozen of us only. The whole of us were given to understand that there was going to be a Debate, and I want to tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he does not give it, he will be made to. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] There are other ways.

Mr. Eden: The hon. Member is perfectly entitled to express his opinion. All I wish to say at the present time is that the arrangements were made in response to a request, made somewhat earlier, that such statements should always be made on the Motion for the Adjournment, so that the House could debate them, and we accordingly so arranged the Business. If there is a desire that henceforward there should be a change in the method, that point will be considered. In reply to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), I did not say that there could be no opportunity for days between now and Easter, but that I cannot see my way to an immediate opportunity for a Debate—in the immediate future.

Mr. W. Brown: Can the Leader of the House give us some hope that within the


next couple of months or so we may have a Debate on the Report of the Rushcliffe Committee dealing with the nursing profession, in which many of us are interested?

Captain Peter Macdonald: Has my right hon. Friend ever heard of battles being won by Debates in this House of Commons?

Mr. Bevan: When are you resigning?

NEW MEMBERS SWORN

Sir David King Murray, K.C., for the County of Midlothian and Peebles (Northern Division).

Admiral Sir William Milbourne James, K.C.B., for the Borough of Portsmouth (North Division).

NATIONAL EXPENDITURE

Ordered,
That a Message be sent to the Lords to request that their Lordships will be pleased to give leave to the Earl of Drogheda to attend and be examined as a witness before, the Sub-Committee for Finance and Establishments Inquiries, appointed by the Select Committee on National Expenditure."—[Mr. Woodburn.]

AIR SERVICES (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, 1942)

Estimate presented, of the further Sum required to be voted for Air Services for the year ending on 31st March, 1943 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 57.]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1943

Estimates presented, for the financial year 1943 [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 58.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[1ST ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[MAJOR MILNER in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1943 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT).

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £208,773,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil and Revenue Departments (including Education and Broadcasting, Pensions, Health Insurance, Unemployment Insurance and Assistance, Roads and other grants and Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues) for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1944, namely:

CIVIL ESTIMATES


CLASS I



£


House of Lords Offices
29,000


House of Commons
155,000


Registration of Electors
8,000


Treasury and Subordinate Departments
315,000


Privy Council Office
7,000


Privy Seal Office
2,500


Charity Commission
12,000


Civil Service Commission
7,000


Exchequer and Audit Department
89,500


Government Actuary
7,000


Government Chemist
32,000


Government Hospitality
3,000


The Mint
10


National Debt Office
500


National Savings Committee
187,000


Public Record Office
14,000


Public Works Loan Commission
6,000


Repayments to the Local Loans Fund
16,000


Royal Commissions, Etc
14,000


Miscellaneous Expenses
20,000


Secret Service
10


Tithe Redemption Commission
10


Ministry of Town and Country Planning
65,000


Scotland:



Scottish Home Department
72,500

CLASS II



£


Foreign Office
500,000


Diplomatic and Consular Services
1,400,000


League of Nations
1,000


Dominions Office
29,000


Dominion Services
100,000


Oversea Settlement
10


Colonial Office
130,000


Colonial and Middle Eastern Services
2,000,000


Development and Welfare (Colonies, Etc.)
500,000

£


Development and Welfare (South African High Commission Territories)
100,000


India and Burma Services
750,000


Imperial War Graves Commission
10,000

CLASS III



£


Home Office
400,000


Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
40,000


Police, England and Wales
7,500,000


Prisons, England and Wales
700,000


Approved Schools, Etc., England and Wales
185,000


Supreme Court of Judicature, Etc.
10


County Courts
100,000


Land Registry
15,000


Public Trustee
2,000


Law Charges
70,000


Miscellaneous Legal Expenses
30,000


Scotland:



Police
275,000


Prisons
59,000


Approved Schools, Etc.
34,000


Scottish Land Court
3,500


Law Charges and Courts of Law
27,000


Register House, Edinburgh
9,000


Ireland:



Northern Ireland Services
3,500


Supreme Court of Judicature, Etc., Northern Ireland
17,500


Irish Land Purchase Services
620,000

CLASS IV



£


Board of Education
20,500,000


British Museum
64,000


British Museum (Natural History)
40,000


Imperial War Museum
4,000


London Museum
1,500


National Gallery
11,000


National Maritime Museum
3,500


National Portrait Gallery
3,000


Wallace Collection
4,000


Scientific Investigation, Etc.
200,000


Universities and Colleges, Great Britain
1,000,000


Broadcasting
4,000,000


Scotland:



Public Education
3,650,000


National Galleries
4,500


National Library
1,000

CLASS V



£


Ministry of Health
8,500,000


Board of Control
91,000


Registrar-General's Office
94,000


National Insurance Audit Department
49,000


Friendly Societies Registry
14,000


Old Age Pensions
20,000,000


Widows', Orphans', and Old Age Contributory Pensions
6,000,000


Ministry of Labour and National Service
14,750,000


Grants in respect of Employment Schemes
650,000


Commissioner for Special Areas (England and Wales)
10

£


Assistance Board
2,150,000


Special Areas Fund
242,000


Financial Assistance in Special and other Areas
8,000


Supplementary Pensions
14,000,000


Scotland:



Department of Health
1,650,000


Board of Control
7,000


Registrar-General's Office
16,500


Commissioner for Special Areas (Scotland)
10

CLASS VI



£


Board of Trade
650,000


Mercantile Marine Services
500,000


Department of Overseas Trade
90,000


Export Credits
100,000


Office of Commissioners of Crown Lands
12,000


Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
1,655,000


Surveys of Great Britain
300,000


Forestry Commission
150,000


Roads, etc.
2,000,000


Miscellaneous Transport Services
13,000


Development Fund
182,000


Development Grants
170,620


Department of Scientific and Industrial Research
213,000


State Management Districts
10


Clearing Offices
10


Scotland:



Department of Agriculture
235,000


Fisheries
10,000


Herring Industry
100

CLASS VII



£


Houses of Parliament Buildings
16,000


Miscellaneous Legal Buildings, Great Britain
60,000


Osborne
8,000


Ministry of Works
1,791,000


Miscellaneous Works Services
90,000


Public Buildings Overseas
28,000


Royal Palaces
36,000


Royal Parks and Pleasure Gardens
72,000


Rates on Government Property
2,500,000


Stationery and Printing
1,200,000


Peterhead Harbour
45,000


Works and Buildings in Ireland
24,000

CLASS VIII



£


Merchant Seamen's War Pensions
70,000


Ministry of Pensions
14,000,000


Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, etc.
430,000


Superannuation and Retired Allowances
1,000,000

CLASS IX



£


Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, England and Wales
18,000,000


Exchequer Contributions to Local Revenues, Scotland
2,251,500

CLASS X



£


Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (War Services)
10


Ministry of Aircraft Production
10


Ministry of Economic Warfare
10


Ministry of Food
10


Ministry of Fuel and Power
10


Ministry of Health (War Services)
10


Ministry of Home Security
10


Ministry of Information
10


Ministry of Labour and National Service (War Services)
10


Postal and Telegraph Censorship Department
10


Ministry of Production
10


Ministry of Supply
10


War Damage (Premises and Private Chattels)
10


War Damage Commission
10


Ministry of War Transport
10


Ministry of Works (War Ser vices)
10


Scotland:—



Department of Agriculture for Scotland (War Services)
10


Department of Health for Scotland (War Services)
10


Scottish Home Department (War Services)
10


Total for Civil Estimates
£162,243,000

REVENUE DEPARTMENTS



£


Customs and Excise
2,130,000


Inland Revenue
4,400,000


Post Office
40,000,000


Total for Revenue Departments
£46,530,000


Total for Civil Estimates and Estimates for Revenue Departments
£208,773,000"

Orders of the Day — TRANSFERENCE OF LABOUR

Mr. Ellis Smith: Let me make It quite clear that we wish to maintain our record in the world battle for freedom. We want the complete annihilation of the Nazi and Fascist cliques and the subjugation of the economic and social forces that gave rise to the Hitlerites, who, in the main, are responsible for this war. Therefore, we are logically bound to support more efficient organisation. We support more efficient organisation, first of all, to enable us to secure an early victory, to avoid a war of attrition and to provide our Forces with overwhelming superiority in weapons and equipment. We desire more efficient organisation in order to be worthy of our great Russian Allies and to

send them the maximum supplies and, at the same time, to get this war over as soon as possible and so save thousands of our lives.
I have prefaced what I intend to say, in order to point out the need, especially in the war situation, to get away from the pre-war quibbling that used to take place in this country, and which to a certain extent, when we come to deal with domestic affairs, we find is still there. The war has made this country dynamic, and we want to maintain that attitude. We want our country to gather momentum for victory and also for peace purposes. At the end of last year, the Minister of Production visited the United States, where he had consultations with those in charge of American production. I should think—and we would like a reply on this point—that agreement was reached on a united, planned strategy, on a planned production programme, based upon our strategical needs. The result of it was the Minister's statement, which, summed up, meant this: Temporary dislocation, leading to the peak production of our offensive needs in ships, aircraft and tanks, in the main.
To-day we are concerned with the following points which the Minister made and which I will give in an extract from his speech:
Nineteen forty-three will be a peak year in our war production, and the total labour force employed in the munitions industries during the year will considerably exceed the numbers employed in 1942. In order to obtain the additional labour force required and at the same time to satisfy the requirements of the Forces, there will have to be, by means of concentration or otherwise, further withdrawals of labour from the less essential industries and further mobilisation of women into industry both for munitions work and as replacements for those transferred from the less essential industries. At the same time transfers of labour within the munition industries themselves must take place ….
Managers and workers who are affected by the changes in programmes which I have just described must realise that, notwithstanding any temporary dislocation that may occur, these changes are part of an ordered plan. If men and women find themselves being transferred to new work they will understand that it is because the new work is even more vitally important than that upon which they were previously engaged. If there is some temporary dislocation to management or to labour, the great and insistent demand for man- and woman-power will quickly reabsorb them into new activities.
We hope they are. If men and women find themselves being transferred to new


work, they will understand it is because the new work has become even more vitally important than that upon which they were previously engaged. If there is some temporary dislocation of management and labour, the great and insistent demand for all man- and woman-power will quickly re-absorb them into new activity.
Then the Minister went on to say:
I would appeal to Members of this House, whose influence can be of so much importance in their constituencies, as well as to the managements of all companies, to give every assistance to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service in his difficult task, by explaining to their workpeople why the changes are necessary. If they are understood, doubt and uncertainty will not occur."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th January, 1943; cols. 38 and 39, Vol. 386.]
That is our main purpose in this Debate. We differ from an hon. Gentleman who spoke from a Bench below the Gangway not long ago, in regard to Debates, because we believe that Debates in this House have been a great contribution to our war effort. We believe that, in this democratic assembly, Questions, in the main, and Debates have helped to stimulate the Government and Government Departments, and at the same time to provide Ministers with an opportunity of making statements which have explained matters of this kind to the country. It is with this reason in mind that we are raising this issue to-day.
An important factor in the degree of success in the new policy will be how the workpeople are treated when these transfers are being made. Upon that matter I am instructed by my hon. Friends to speak, and I gladly do so. At the last Trades Union Congress this resolution was carried:
The Congress urges upon the Government the necessity of seeing that ample safeguards are provided to ensure that employers cannot take advantage of the Regulations by transferring their (the employers') liability for subsistence allowance on to the Government and, in addition"—
and this is what I want to emphasise—
that proper accommodation is provided for the workers prior to transference, and adequate welfare arrangements made. Further regard should be paid to the question of women workers and the need of keeping them employed as near their homes as possible.
I hope that, in the policy which the Minister of Production outlined, that resolution will be borne in mind. I understand that the new policy will mean that

transfers will have to take place on a national scale and also within a region, and that there will also be transfers within a restricted area. What does the Ministry consider a reasonable distance to travel daily for a transferred worker, from his or her home to the new place? Over a reasonable distance, workers should receive travelling allowance daily. When the travelling distance is over the reasonable mileage, can arrangements be made for transferred people to receive a hot meal when they arrive, or, at the very least, tea, if the distance is outside a reasonable mileage? I would also ask that the transferred workpeople should be given more free travelling vouchers, especially at holiday periods. When there is sickness at home they should be given leave as expeditiously as possible, because if their minds are on the fact that there is sickness in their homes, they cannot do justice either to themselves or to those in charge of the work. It is to be remembered that in those cases they have to bear the cost of making the journey home and that sickness in the home increases the domestic expenditure, while at the same time they suffer a loss of wages. That is why I suggest that leave should be granted to them more readily than has been the case up to the present, and that they should also receive more travelling vouchers. I think in circumstances like those, transferred people are entitled to some such benefits as I suggest, and I therefore ask that consideration shall be given to that aspect of the matter in connection with the new policy.
Then, I would ask, cannot something be done to ease the difficulty experienced by workpeople who are transferred from a relatively highly-paid area to an area where the pay is lower? I can visualise that under the new policy which has been outlined this will be a cause of considerable difficulty. Cannot arrangements be made for the payment of a transfer bonus in cases of that kind? There is another point. Why have the Government not taken steps to put an end to the exorbitant charges which are being made for houses? This matter is probably causing as much friction as any other question—if not, indeed, more than any other question of which I know at the present time—in connection with the transfer of workpeople. If transference is to take place on a large scale, something will have to be done in this respect, in order that the


machine may work as efficiently as we desire it to work, and enable us to get the best results.

Mr. Craven-Ellis: The hon. Member has just complained of the charges which are being made for houses. Would it not be more correct if he were to say the charges made for lodgings, since house rent is controlled?

Mr. Smith: I was going on to make that point. My first point was in regard to houses, and I intended in the next place to mention that the same complaint applied to lodgings. The same thing applies to rent, and the same thing applies to charges for keys. All this means a form of inflation. The Government have done better than I expected as regards the avoidance of inflation in this country, but they do not seem to have tackled this particular problem, in the same way as they have dealt with bigger issues. We want to know to-day who has prevented this matter from being dealt with; who is responsible for it, and will it be dealt with before transfers take place on a larger scale? The question of housing accommodation is one of the most difficult which has to be faced in connection with large-scale transfers. In the industrial areas there were serious housing shortages even before the war, and these have been intensified by the large numbers of people who have come into the industrial areas since the war began.
Within limits, the most efficient way of dealing with the problem would be for the Government to take over all the large hotels in the industrial areas and to retain the staffs and the service in those hotels for the accommodation of transferred workers. No class of people in this country, apart from the Armed Forces, are more entitled to have the most efficient service possible than the people directly employed in the manufacture of munitions. If it was right to take over seaside hotels to house Government offices and to accommodate Civil servants, then I think it is reasonable to suggest, now that a policy of large-scale transfer is to be embarked upon, according to the Minister's own statement, that large hotels, within reasonable distance of industrial centres, should be taken over in order that our people may be housed on as decent a basis as possible.
I do not know whether it is generally realised everywhere what our people have gone through during the last four or five years, particularly in the industrial centres. Very few countries, with the possible exception of Russia, have gone through worse experiences, and I do not think this is fully realised throughout the world. I live among these people; I belong to them and do not desire to be any different from them, and it is obvious, when you are among them and speak to them, how great has been the effect of the strain of the last few years upon them. No one could have made a greater contribution to the war effort than they have made. I submit that we have now reached a stage at which maximum hours could be fixed at a certain figure which would enable us to get the best possible production from the people, having regard to that strain under which they have been working. After Dunkirk they worked for 60 and 70 and 80 and 90 hours—a fact of which the Minister himself needs no reminding. He is as well aware of it as any of us. But now we have reached a stage of the war and a situation in regard to man-power, in which, I think, it would be good policy if hours were fixed, except in cases of exceptional emergency or urgency, at about 54 or 56 or some figure like that. Is the Minister satisfied that we are obtaining the best results from the men and women in industry who desire to give of their best? I would follow up that question by asking also: Are we getting the best production we could get from the numbers engaged in the aircraft industry? Those are questions to which we should have satisfactory answers before any large-scale transfers take place.
I had expected that a representative of the Ministry of Production would have been here to-day, because the issues which are being raised concern not only the Ministry of Labour, but also the Ministry of Production and the Ministry of Supply. I would like to ask at this point whether better arrangements can be made to balance and to fit in the labour supply with the raw materials supply. When major modifications are made or when there is a change-over from one type to another, can we be given an assurance that transferred workpeople will not be sent to some place where they will have to mark time until production can start? Nothing has a worse effect on workpeople than


being transferred from one area to another, only to find that the area to which they have been transferred is not yet ready for production. There has been too much of that, and under the new policy that kind of thing ought not to take place. I would also ask whether workpeople will be allowed to remain as near to their homes as possible. I have seen a number of circulars issued by the Ministry, and we have heard speeches made by the Minister. We have noticed the spirit in which he makes those speeches, and I be-believe it is intended that the whole administration of the scheme should be carried out in that same spirit. What steps then are being taken, in connection with the new policy of transference, to see that the other Ministries involved in particular localities act in accordance with the Minister's intentions? Will there be a linking-up in the localities to avoid friction?
I suggest that where production committees have not already been set up some sort of joint committees should be established, in order that the facts can be explained to the workpeople. I have sufficient confidence in our people, and I know them sufficiently well, to say without hesitation that if the facts are explained to them most of them will respond. Unfortunately, too often a new policy is introduced and people are transferred, or some change takes place, without any explanation being offered to the people. These joint committees ought to be set up where large transfers take place, so that the facts can be put before the workpeople and so that general discussion can take place. I also suggest the setting-up of a rota, in the preparation of which everything would be taken into consideration in regard to domestic responsibilities and liabilities, and that the transfers should be made upon that basis.
We all know that the Ministry of Labour has organised the British people in such a way that a great story can be told of it. It is time that that story was told to this country and to the world. It would inspire our people to greater efforts; it would encourage our men in the Forces, and that which would assist the enemy could be left out. In my view there is not yet the co-operation there should be between the Ministries responsible on such questions as transfers. Is there the co-ordination there should be on these questions between the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of

Production, the Ministry of Supply, the Admiralty and the Ministry of Aircraft Production? Are we getting the co-operation we should get from the local authorities? Here is just one example. Let us remind ourselves that we are in the fourth year of war. In the last war supplementary rations were granted to workpeople. I believe that in this war those engaged in heavy manual work should have received supplementary rations, but the Ministry of Food would not agree to a policy of that kind. Many of my hon. Friends would not agree to a policy of that kind. I agree that it is very debatable.
This is the reply which the Ministry of Food made to some of us. My right hon. Friend will remember those of us in Parliament who suggested that heavy workers like miners, engineers, transport workers, steel workers should be entitled to supplementary rations. The Ministry said, "We have a good deal of sympathy with you, but it cannot be done, owing to the situation we find ourselves in." They went on to say that British Restaurants are now being established and that in industrial centres in particular the workpeople can take advantage of the facilities which the Ministry has organised at those British Restaurants and that this is equivalent to a supplementary ration.
I thought that was very reasonable, and I accepted it. But what do we find? Here we are in the fourth year of the war, and so far as industrial centres are concerned this is what has been done. At the end of January, 1943, the number of British restaurants operating in the towns mentioned, per 30,000 of the population, were as follow:—Stoke-on-Trent, 1; Birmingham, 1; Manchester, 0.4; Sheffield, 0.4; Glasgow, 0.3; Salford, 0.1; Liverpool, 0.4. I have no hesitation in saying that these figures are a disgrace to those localities, and that were we getting the co-operation of the local authorities in those areas that we should do those figures would be much higher. I go on to the numbers that have been set up—Stoke-on-Trent, 9; Sheffield, 7; Glasgow, 10; Manchester, centre of a large industrial area which will probably become more important in view of our new needs and products upon which we are going to concentrate, 11; Birmingham, 35, with 14 being prepared; Newcastle-on-Tyne, 30; Salford, 1; Liverpool, 10; Darwen,


Eccles and Farnworth, none; Leigh, none; Mossley, none; St. Helen's, none; and Swinton, none. Therefore, there seems to be need, before the Minister embarks on large-scale transfers, with the additional people going into those localities, to take notice of these figures.
There is too much of this, and I am going to read this, because I think the House ought to be aware of it. A man wrote to me, and I asked him, because of what he said in his letter, whether he was a trade unionist, because that is a point which carries some weight, so far as we who come from industrial areas are concerned, because we believe, in view of the part which trade unions have played before and during the war, it places an obligation on the shoulders of all British working people to associate themselves with their fellows and become a part of the trade union movement. My correspondent replied under the official heading of the Transport and General Workers' Union:
Dear Bro. Ellis Smith,
Many thanks for the reply to my letter. I am sorry to inform yon that my wife died a few hours after writing yon on Saturday night, from meningitis. I think you will agree with me that her death would be aggravated by the suffering and worry over my having to leave her to go out of the district at that particular time. I do not want to take up much of your time but I would like you to hear this appeal of mine. I have also addressed a similar appeal to another member of the House. I might add that I feel very sore at losing my wife through the inefficiency of these people who claim to administrate in these cases, and I would like you to interview Mr. Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour (who might know me personally) to look up my case. I have written to the National Service Officer at Malvern for my release on the same ground as before except that I have added that my wife has since died and further that my activities as a union official warrant me a job nearer to my home. I am enclosing the original copy of my appeal.
Here is the original copy, which anyone can examine. This is a real tragedy. It is headed "Regulation 58A of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939." This man is being instructed to take up employment as a designated craftsman in another part of the country, and this is the case which he puts in his appeal:
1. Owing to the illness of my wife, who has been suffering from tuberculosis for the last 25 years. Secondly, of the four children left at home out of six, two of them, girls of 15 and 17 respectively, a son of 19 and a little girl of

seven require parental control, and my effort, if I went away, would be wasted to the country if these children lost all parental control.
That was sent by the man. They go on to say:
This man was withdrawn from building maintenance work at the R.O.F. on instructions from Regional Office, through the Inspector of Building Labourers Supply. He was directed to take up first urgency work.
I do not believe that it was ever the intention of this House that cases of that kind should be transferred. If transfers are to take place on a large scale, we have somehow to get the Minister's and the Ministry's spirit carried out right through the administration, because I do not believe that it was ever intended that that kind of case should be transferred.
When workpeople are transferred in the future, I ask for the most efficient organisation and the best possible treatment from when they leave their homes to when they settle in another. We on this side of the House—I say that in no political sense but because of where we come from and belong to—have restrained ourselves from the beginning of this war to an extent to which I never thought I should be able to restrain myself. We have done that as a contribution to the war effort. We have allowed scores and scores of Regulations to go through this House without saying a word. Now it annoys us when we, sitting here, can see Members quibbling over Regulations when they are introduced, not to move people about, but because Ministers want to improve the efficiency of the war machine. We find certain hon. Members quibbling, and in many ways that is bound to have some effect on us, considering how these matters are dealt with. In pre-war days those who could afford it had their holiday tours arranged for them. During the whole of the tours they made there was very seldom a hitch. We want to aim at the same standard of organisation in the organisation and treatment of all transferred workpeople. It is not luxury we are asking for. We are asking for human treatment, the avoidance of friction, the maintenance of good will, all leading to the maximum production. There is more consideration and sympathy in this country now for one another than at any, other time in my lifetime. We should keep in tune with the people and make care for the people's welfare a State instruction to all. I remember when I was at work one very efficient manager whose


policy was to give full consideration to all questions that were raised. You could not have a row with him. The result was that he obtained maximum production. That is what we should aim at in this transference policy. We take no objection to the policy; we realise that it is a contribution to the war effort; but the policy should be carried out on the basis I have indicated, to eliminate friction and to maintain good will, so enabling us to secure maxmum production. By that means we shall achieve earlier victory and take a much larger part in the battle for freedom.

Mr. Lambert: May I draw the attention of the Committee and of the Government to some strange happenings in regard to transference of labour in the West? We were supposed at the beginning of the war to be in a safe area. Unfortunately, since the spineless French Government threw in their hand we have had a considerable amount of enemy action, and we are getting it still. I submit that it is essential that industry should be engaged in an area as safe as possible. Some time ago some official, apparently, decided to build a factory in the West of England. I hope that hon. Members will allow me to be purposely a little vague, but I can say that it is in a very vulnerable place; I know the place well. Labour is being withdrawn from factories which are fully engaged on war work to man this new factory. This factory has not yet, I believe, been opened. It has a new management, the workers have to be brought there, and there is considerable irritation, to say the least, on the part of those firms fully engaged in war work in the West of England whose skilled workers are being withdrawn from them and sent to this new factory. I did not want to be drawn into this matter, but the chamber of commerce approached me and asked me to bring the matter before the Ministers responsible. I have done my best to bring it before the Minister of Supply and the Minister of Aircraft Production, but I have got no response except the ordinary official one, which we know so well.
When this chamber of commerce approached me I said, "It is no use going with general grumbling; send me to a particular spot." I went to one factory, old-established, well-managed, with the best relations between the workpeople and

the employers—not a cold-blooded joint-stock enterprise. They are manufacturing war material of the highest priority. I would not like to say what it is, but it is aircraft equipment and equipment for the safety of our soldiers in Africa. This factory had expanded, and suddenly some official came down, from the Ministry of Labour, I presume, and said that they must move nearly 200 girls to this new factory in this vulnerable area. The firm said, "If you do this, you will dislocate the factory." The local man-power board then saw the factory, and said that if the labour were withdrawn the whole thing would be paralysed. So it was decided-that 100 girls, instead of 200, must be taken away. The firm complained to the Ministry, saying, "We have these orders on hand, and we cannot fulfil them if you take away this labour." Down came an order from the Ministry that the labour was not to be moved. My hon. Friend has talked about co-ordination between the Departments. There was no co-ordination here. It is asking too much of such firms to take away their labour when the firms have put in expensive plant and are clamouring for labour themselves. As the manager said, "We do not know where we are." They cannot know where they are until their labour question is settled. Who really is responsible for this? Is it the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Aircraft Production, or who? I am drawing attention to this matter, not because I like doing so, but because I cannot get any satisfaction. I really am interested in agriculture, which is war production in another form.
At the moment, I am told, the factories engaged on war work in the West are being paralysed. They do not know what labour they are going to have. This labour that I am talking about is employed on an important form of production. It is well housed and looked after, and it is to be sent away now to a new neighbourhood. That cannot improve production. To have labour engaged fully, under skilled management, under congenial conditions, is surely ideal for good production. I hope that I may get some reply, but I see only the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour here. [Interruption.] I am sorry; my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Production is quite close to me, but I suppose I


am rather near-sighted. As my hon. Friend has said, when you transfer labour like this you send it into strange surroundings. Here the workers are fully engaged, in their home surroundings. The firms employing them have machines lying idle, and they want more labour. I ask the Government to consider this phase of affairs. I am not speaking for other parts of the country, but I happen to know the West of England very well. I am sure the Minister himself would say that a young woman engaged on war work cannot be shovelled about like a sack of coal. After all, these people are human beings. I know that they have an example in the highest quarters, and that Ministers in Departments are pushed around, but workers really do matter.
I ask that some consideration may be given to this case. I am sorry to have had to bring it forward, but having tried the two Departments concerned, and having received these wonderful letters on high priority and the rest—no one in his senses manufactures goods of high priority in a very vulnerable area—there is one thing I must say from my own knowledge and experience, and that is, that however young a Department is, it has always got, or always will get very quickly, a branch of equivocation. My old Friend the late Lord Fisher used to say that every Department had its lie factory. He called a spade a spade. We have this equivocation, but I am afraid that high priority and all sorts of officialdom do not affect me very much, because I have had experience of it. I have put these points before the Government, and I hope that I may be able to go back to Devonshire and say that labour from well-managed factories, in comfortable conditions and turning out war work, will not be transferred to factories in a vulnerable area in which the management has yet much to learn and where the labour has yet to be comfortably housed.

Mr. Naylor: As representing a riverside constituency in London, I propose to put one or two points before the Minister with regard to the existing grievances among London dockers and stevedores. It does seem extraordinary that a most ordinary Member should be speaking on such a subject to the Minister of Labour, who has justly earned the reputation of being the dockers'

K.C. If he were here, I would have asked him to look upon me as one of his junior counsel, tugging at his gown and throwing out a few useful suggestions. The first point I want to put before the Minister is the question of the wages paid when dockers and stevedores are transferred from London to other ports. It is well-known that in London the guaranteed rate of this labour is higher than it is in certain other ports, and the London docker has to submit to the payment of this lower guarantee. I believe that those are the facts of the situation, and it is one of the grievances of the men who have submitted their case to me and other hon. Members on this side of the Committee.
It is the opinion of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour that all questions of wages and conditions ought to be determined by the usual industrial methods, by consultation and discussions between employers' organisations and the trade unions. While I agree with that in the main, there is a great difference in regard to the arrangements for determining what the guaranteed rate of wages shall be. The difference in the guaranteed rate, while it may be recognised by the industrial organisations concerned in a particular industry, is affected by an Order from the Minister. It is due to the arrangements made by the Ministry for the transfer of London labour to other ports that the men have to submit to this lower rate. I therefore desire to support the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) when he mentioned that the best method of dealing with this injustice—and an injustice it certainly is—would be for the Ministry to arrange for a transfer bonus, equalising the guaranteed rate between London and the other ports of this country. The men have a distinct grievance. It is not only a reduction of wages to which they have to submit, but their expenses in living away from home are heavier in consequence of their transference. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that a very good case has been made out for an equalisation of differential wages when that difference does not arise from any local industrial considerations. The Ministry is responsible for the transfer, and therefore it should consider it to be its responsibility for equalising the conditions among these men.
I suggest also that there is room for improvement in the billeting arrangements.


These men have complained to us that the billeting arrangements are far from desirable. We know, of course, that the war is still on and that strangers cannot expect hotel comforts when engaged on work of this kind, but the least the Ministry can do is to suggest to the billeting officers that the dock labourers and stevedores of London are not tramps and that they have a right to expect that the billeting officer, whose duties are directed towards obtaining the best possible living conditions for these men, should be reminded that no effort should be spared in the attempt to provide them with suitable accommodation. I have heard stories—I do not credit all of them, and therefore I shall not repeat any of them to the Committee, because I should be reluctant to do so without having confirmation—in which the most extraordinary statements have been made with regard to the billeting arrangements, and at least the Ministry should make inquiries as to whether the billeting officers are treating the dockers and stevedores as they ought to be treated in that respect. It is not enough that the billeting officer should be satisfied that there is a bedroom to be let; he should make sure that the accommodation is what might be expected, all the circumstances being taken into consideration. I hope that the Ministry will throw out a suggestion to the billeting officers to make every effort possible to see that the accommodation is as suitable and as comfortable as circumstances permit.
Another complaint is that the arrangement for paying wages at some of these ports are very far removed from the ideal, and while we may not expect the ideal, we can at least hope that practical consideration will be given to the difficulties of men who have been transferred from London, perhaps 200 or 300 miles away, only to find that, after having been in the transferred area for something like a week or two, their wages have not been paid. They tell me that the explanation is that there are so many formalities that have to be observed and inquiries to be made before the pay-packet can be issued. I admit that circumstances may demand certain inquiries with regard to what may be due to any particular set of men, but surely some arrangement could be made whereby these men could be provided with something on account. It may be that

they do receive something on account; I am not sure about that.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson) indicated assent.

Mr. Naylor: I understand from the Parliamentary Secretary that that is so. I had not been informed to that extent, and I am very glad to hear it. It certainly would be a great hardship on these men if they were kept a couple of weeks without having something substantial on which to live in the meantime. Another complaint that has been made—and I put it forward with all reservation, because I know the difficulties of the situation—is that men transferred from London, both stevedores and dockers, say that they have often got to the transfer port only to find that there is no employment for them. They are taken from London, where they are not so much required as at the port to where they are being transferred, but when they get to the port of transfer they find that there is no more work for them there than there was previously in London. I agree that shipping arrangements are so uncertain at the present time that it cannot be expected that men can automatically be put to work unloading ships that are not there, and that therefore the position cannot possibly be improved in that respect, and I cannot understand for a moment that men would be kept idle if there was work for them to do. I only throw out that suggestion because it has been represented to us as though the position can be remedied. I am not sure that it can be remedied, but possibly in the reply that is to be made by the Minister that point will be made clear. I hope that these matters will have the consideration of the Ministry as soon as it can get to work upon them.

Mrs. Tate: I want to speak for a few moments, not on the subject which has been raised by the hon. Member for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor), but on the subject of trying to prevent labour leaving places where it is urgently needed. For a very long time I have been urging that there shall be formed a special branch of the Women's Land Army in order that there might be some house-stewards to assist the farmers' wives in the very-arduous housework which they now have to do, but that has been, apparently, considered impracticable. If that is not done, there is an urgent and an immediate need for the formation of a new body of women


workers as household-stewards in hospitals, mental hospitals, farmhouses and other places of that kind. At the present time there is no question but that there is a large number of people who are desperately overworked, while a certain proportion are still not doing as much as they could. We have in the countryside numerous examples of women who have to work 16 to 18 hours a day in order to get through their duties at farmhouses. These farmhouses have land girls or other workers billeted on them, and all their help has been taken away. In many areas hospitals are closed for lack of sufficient staff, and here may I say that you will never have a sufficient number of really contented nursing staff unless you are able to provide an adequate number of domestic workers for hospitals. The domestic workers' status would be improved if she were given a uniform which would enable the general public to appreciate that she was engaged on work which was absolutely vital to the war effort. The shortage of domestic workers in the past has been due to the lack of status, and this must, of necessity, be very much accentuated in war-time when they see companions of their own age going about in uniform with the prestige, glamour and many advantages Which a uniform undoubtedly does confer. Therefore, I urge seriously on the Minister that there should be either some badge or armlet issued or a definite corps of house stewards formed for farmhouses and hospitals, including mental hospitals.
I would also urge that considerably greater care should be exercised about the registration of women. I think it would be perhaps worth while, when there is time, to re-examine the papers of those who have registered, to find out whether women are, in fact, looking after their own children after having stated that they were looking after them at their time of registration. It is only a proportion of cases. No one will deny that the vast majority of women are grossly overworked, but there is a proportion who are not pulling their weight. The promise that women would not be called up or be directed to certain work if they had under their care children under a certain age has, in certain instances, been grossly abused. Women have gone to employment exchanges and said that they were looking after their children, and there has

been no inquiry. I admit that an effective inquiry is difficult, but there has been no check as to whether they are, in fact, looking after their house and children or whether they have help. In a great many cases I know women are desperately in need of help, but in others women have escaped on the plea that they were looking after their children themselves. I know of cases of women living in hotels who have taken their children away from boarding schools, at which they were being well educated and looked after, to live with them in the hotels in order that they themselves might escape the call-up. They have done this although they have done nothing towards looking after or educating their children. If we are to get in our harvest this year and keep our hospitals open and staffed, it will be absolutely essential to have a more thorough comb-out of women who could do part-time work.
There is no doubt that for many women it would be quite impossible to do a whole day's work, but if they could be found, there are many who could perfectly well do, say, four hours' work a day in hospitals or farmhouses. I appreciate the immense difficulties of checking the registrations of these women, but in view of the labour shortage and the terrible burdens which have been placed upon the women who are doing more than they should, I believe it would be in the interests of the country as a whole that there should be some such check and increased stringency on registrations.

Mr. Granville: I am glad that the hon. Lady the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) has raised the question of part-time women. I agree with much of what she said, and I think some part of the solution of the problem of enabling these women who have children to go to factories for part-time work is to be found in the extension of nursery schools, particularly if they could be arranged near the factories in which it was hoped to get these women to work. I would impress upon the Ministry of Labour the important point that it is necessary to get the proper air-raid shelters for these children during the time that they are left at these day nurseries.
I welcome the opportunity of discussing this question of the transference of labour. On the whole, I think the scheme which was announced by the Minister of


Labour is working reasonably well. In total war, if your production is allied to your military strategy, you have to make considerable changes which cause certain dislocations, but, as I have said, I think the present arrangements are, on the whole, working fairly well. It would have been much better, of course, if we had set up our Ministry of Production sooner, so that earlier co-ordination of plans for production would have enabled the many changes now being brought about to have been made before. This problem now of the transference of labour is not a single problem in itself; it is a series of problems, and I think that the chief of the difficulties which have to be dealt with is the question of housing and billeting, as well as transport, and the question of more day nurseries to enable part-time women to make arrangements to leave their children. Many of these problems affect what is called the outside welfare work of the factory. Unfortunately, while some of the bigger factories have welfare officers who are working and co-operating upon this question, some of the smaller factories have no such officers and are thereby placed in a difficult position. One of the methods of dealing with this would be to ask the larger factories to give assistance to or co-operate with the smaller factories which are unable to appoint welfare officers, so that on general questions they can benefit from the knowledge on a whole range of subjects on outside welfare.
As this welfare arrangement touches the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of War Transport and the Board of Education, it seems to me that in each great industrial area which is engaged upon war production co-ordination or centralisation of Government plans on outside welfare is necessary. In December, 1942, the Government issued a report on welfare outside the factories. The committee responsible for the report was presided over by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, and I do not know whether my hon. Friends have read it, but in it there is a great deal of information about welfare and about what the Government have been doing. There was a Debate in another place on this subject, to which Lord Snell replied and promised to give some answers, but so far this report has not been noticed by the House of Commons. Certainly, it has

not been debated by this House. As I have said, I think the most difficult problem from the point of view of labour transference is that of billeting. I realise that the major responsibility for billeting is with the Ministry of Health, but there is a responsibility which rests upon the Ministry of Labour. No matter what may be required by way of priority of production, in some of these large industrial areas I do not see how you are to get any more industrial workers into them unless housing conditions are improved.
I happen to be associated with industrial welfare, and I have seen conditions in towns engaged upon war production which are more than serious. They are tragic and even scandalous. I have recently seen conditions where families live in one room with grown-up children, below pavement level in basements where there are poor arrangements for ventilation and fresh air. I am bound to say that unless the Government do something about this serious overcrowding in some of our industrial towns, the percentage of sickness and, absenteeism will rise in the future. I know that we have local billeting committees, usually presided over by the mayor of the town or the chairman of the council, but I am not quite sure whether the Government realise the limitation upon these commitmittees. Over and over again it has been brought to my notice that local billeting committees have not sufficient power to requisition certain houses which become vacant. I do not know whether the Minister of Labour, who I am glad to see here, is aware of that, but I certainly know it myself. Local billeting officers are continually making recommendations to the Ministry of Health asking for greater powers in order to allow them to requisition artisan houses that become vacant in industrial towns. I hope that when the Minister of Labour comes to reply to the Debate he will give us some information about that, because there is a general feeling that local billeting committees are limited in their powers. I had a case brought to my notice recently in which a war worker and his grown-up family who were living in one room were given a vacant house, but the landlord objected to war workers with families, and the chairman of the billeting committee had no power to carry through the arrangement. The result was that an evacuee with no family came from another town and took


the house, and the war worker was left to return to his damp and unhealthy underground basement. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do something about this, but, of course, I realise it is partly the responsibility of the Ministry of Health.
I turn now to the hostels which have been built by the Government for single industrial workers who are transferred from one district to another, and particularly for Irish workers who are brought to this country. I do not know whether it is because the building priority is low or what may be the cause of the hold-up, but some of these hostels are in an advanced stage of completion but require something to be done to finish them. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether there is a likelihood of the large hostel which is being built at Colnbrook being finished in the near future, because, as he knows, the overcrowding in that district is very serious? I am anxious to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman how much depends upon the billeting committees. It is no good a factory saying, "We want more workers, we want part-time women," when the town in which the factory is situated is completely overcrowded. I am not sure that the right hon. Gentleman's Department ought not to have direct representation on the local billeting committees in order to ginger them up occasionally. The other day a case was brought to my notice of a war worker, working upon an important machine, whose wife had had to go into hospital for a serious operation; there was nowhere for the man to take his children, with the result that he had to leave the workshop, leave his important machine, and stay at home to look after the children. When inquiries were made it was found that the local hospital had no powers to take in children under any scheme unless they were the children of ex-Service men serving in this war or the children of evacuees from bombed-out areas. What is necessary is for some change in the regulations of these hospitals or some arrangements with day nurseries which in such cases would enable the children to be looked after so that the man could continue to do his job.
I do not know whether, in regard to the transference of labour, the right hon. Gentleman has given sufficient attention

to the possibility of appealing for volunteers to go to different districts to work. In Russia, under the Stakhanov experiment, where there is a bottleneck in production they send special workers who do not mind going to various parts of the country; that experiment is working with great success in Russia. I have a feeling that there are many workers in this country who, if they were told that at a certain place some bottleneck was stopping vital priority production, would readily volunteer to go there under uncomfortable conditions and work to increase the war output.
As I have said, I think the right hon. Gentleman's scheme is, on the whole, working reasonably well. I recognise the difficulty there is in production when that production is closely allied to changes in military strategy. The overcoming of these difficulties depends not upon Ministers making soporific speeches over the week end, but upon solving a number of problems which are at the back of production. These problems are in the hands of a number of Ministries. I do not know whether there is sufficient co-ordination at the top, but I do know that often the chief problem of these production committees in factories, which are tackling general matters, is outside welfare—billeting, transport, and nurseries. Of course, when the demobilisation of industry from a war footing to a peace footing takes place, that in itself will present enormous problems. I can understand the right hon. Gentleman saying, "Let me get over one hurdle first." It may be that the machine will then be in the reverse. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has good advisers. I have congratulated him before on some of his advisers on the area boards who are in many cases first-class men; but in the districts, where there are overcrowding and all the relevant problems, I wonder whether the Government intentions and desires are getting through the Department and down to the area committees and billeting officers. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give attention to that probable bottleneck.
I have heard some workmen say that their welfare is being well taken care of to the extent that they get too many Ensa concerts. I do not decry these Ensa concerts in the canteens on the day and night shifts. But I have also had workmen tell me that they would appreciate it if they were told a few more of the definite facts


about the war. If war talks, the facts about what the Government are up against, what the Government want and what must be done, were given in some of the canteens, it would satisfy some of the hungry minds in the factories. You have a Government political warfare executive or propaganda machine, and you have been selling Government sunshine to the country by the week and by the month. I appeal to the Government to tell the workpeople the facts, what it is the Government want them to do, what are the difficulties in production, and not to give an impression that practically speaking the war is over and victory is just round the corner. In conclusion I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having tackled the central problem of the transfer of labour and I submit to him that the real solution is to overcome the allied problems and see that the real intentions and methods get right down to the local committees.

Sir Adam Maitland: I am not sure I can whole-heartedly subscribe to the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Granville) in his concluding sentences. Sometimes I am inclined to think that in the matter of propaganda we are copying the enemy too much and are likely to suffer from some of the evils of propaganda. It is important to recognise that propaganda is a weapon of war, but it is highly important that in the selection of the propaganda to be used there should be the greatest possible discrimination.

Mr. Granville: I was trying to say that I think there has been too much propaganda and too much talk about everything being fine and easy. As Lord Northcliffe said in the last war, if you tell the people the facts they will back you through anything. But tell them the truth.

Sir A. Maitland: I would like to remind my hon. Friend what another man, a very eminent statesman, said in the last war. I will not mention his name, but I will give it to my hon. Friend privately. He said that when you are fighting a war, you could not possibly win it if you had to tell the people all the truth. However, that is by the way. The new scheme which is now the subject of debate was announced by the Minister of Production some weeks ago. Hon. Members will remember that at that time my right hon.

Friend made a special appeal to hon. Members to help him in every way they could by explaining to their constituents the cause and purpose of the change. I think that appeal was well timed. There is probably no other matter which would be capable of causing so much hardship and misrepresentation and so much troublesome administration as the transfer of labour.
I am sorry the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) is not present at the moment. In his opening speech he said a great many things with which most of us agreed. Among other things, he said that hours of labour should be shortened, and I think he made an appeal to the Minister that that should be done. I think that principle has long been established in the mind of every person who has any knowledge of industrial conditions, and has been laid down in numerous speeches in the House and in reports to the House. I would like to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour whether it is not a fact that his Ministry' have laid down the maximum number of hours which may be worked in certain industries. Perhaps he can inform us whether there have been deviations from that order, because, as obviously must be the case in war-time, a certain latitude must be given. I would like to know to what extent the general order has been applied.
The hon. Member for Stoke went on to say that he hoped in our war effort we would be worthy of our gallant Allies the Russians. Having said that, I rather thought his nearer approach to the subject did not seem to be quite in keeping with that expression of hope. He referred to the common efforts of the people of Russia, the sacrifices that had been made by them and the conditions in which they have carried on their campaign, and, as he spoke, I could not help asking myself how he reconciled all this with the demands he made that, before any transfers of labour are made in this country, everything should be done to provide for the maximum comfort of those who are asked to carry out their part in the war effort. The hon. Member knows quite well that in saying this I am not speaking with any lack of sympathy. We shall this year get to the peak of our war effort, and instead of assuming that all the things which the hon. Member thinks


should be done can be done, I feel that we must in this instance let it be known that, however much we desire to do certain of these things, war conditions make it impossible for us to do them. Let me reinforce that by saying that during the whole period of the war, time after time there have been brought to the House Reports of the Select Committee on National Expenditure dealing with production matters, labour troubles, difficulties in regard to housing and so on. These troubles, of course, are relative and do not detract from our really magnificent war effort as a whole. In spite of the hardships of the war, I believe it would be a mistake to assume that it will be possible for those engaged in the war effort now to Have anything in the nature of the comforts which the hon. Gentlemen generally desire should be extended to them. But I think we should not be true to ourselves and to our responsibilities if we did not at once recognise that in this scheme of transfer of labour there are bound to be enormous hardships inflicted upon some of those who are transferred. I think we must accept it as an inevitable fact that in war things have to be done which, if we were not at war, we would not do in any circumstances.
I should like to suggest that instead of asking for these privileges and comforts, we should try to emphasise that whatever hardship and inconvenience are endured represent the measure of a person's direct personal contribution to the war effort and I believe that is the way we should approach this very difficult task.

Mr. Granville: Surely the hon. Member would discriminate between workers and their families living in underground basements where they cannot get sleep during the day when they are on night shift and ordinary war hardships?

Sir A. Maitland: I would remind my hon. Friend that the whole of our war effort has had to be from time to time improvised and changed. There are places that are overcrowded. They have for strategical purposes arranged that certain factories shall be here, there and everywhere and places are overcrowded but I do not see, much as I should like to see it, how these conditions can be greatly improved at this particular stage.

The question of man—and woman—power is gradually becoming more and more accentuated. It will become even more serious. We should try as far as we can to bring home to our people the troublous times that we are experiencing and impressing upon them that this is the urgent period of maximum effort.

Flight-Lieutenant Boothby: As usual I find myself in agreement with almost everything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) when she was dealing with the problem of women and girl labour. Her speech was extraordinarily good and I urge the right hon. Gentleman to read it because she talks a lot of good sense. She says, and I do not think it can be contradicted, that the hardest sheer labour and work being done in this country to-day is being done in the farmhouses where women Who are not enrolled in any particular trade or service are doing up to 12, 14 and even 18 hours' work a day. That goes for both Scotland and England. She said again that there was a considerable disparity between the amount of work done as far as women workers are concerned by certain classes, as compared with others. There is, I think, a very small section of the female population who are not pulling their weight altogether; and I feel that the Minister of Labour might make a little further inquiry especially where looking after children is concerned. The hon. Lady instanced cases of women who are living in hotels, and in order to qualify for exemption from work of national service have taken their children away from boarding schools, and had them to live in the hotels, so that they could claim that they had to look after so many children.
Another point that wants watching is how much assistance the mother of a young family has, or has not. No one would deny that a mother of small children without outside assistance who has to take the whole responsibility of looking after the family ought to be exempted, but there are cases where outside assistance is obtained. I do not want an inquisition, but the point wants looking into; because there is all the difference in the world between a mother who has no outside help, and another who is living in entirely different circumstances, with outside assistance, but merely by


reason of the fact that she has so many children under a certain age obtains total exemption from war work. This is a grievance that is felt up and down the country; and the fact that the number who are shirking is so very small tends to aggravate rather than diminish the grievance.
But it was to speak about the particular problem of Scotland that I rose. The right hon. Gentleman knows, and no doubt regrets as much as I do, that in the past Scotland was very badly treated with regard to production by a Government of which he was not a member, and for the actions of which he has no responsibility. Scotland did not receive her fair share of the new shadow factories when the rearmament programme was commenced, and we have never been able to make up that leeway. Could he give some assurance that, as far as it is in his power—I do not think he can do a very great deal—he is continuing the policy he said he was going to carry out of putting as many factories as possible in Scotland, and of awarding as many contracts as possible to Scottish industrial firms, in order to avoid the transference of mobile labour? Because we feel very strongly that, if we had had a fair deal in the past, the transfer of labour that has taken place from Scotland to England need never have occurred. I therefore ask what is being done to increase the number of factories and the number of contracts awarded to industrial firms in Scotland.
Thanks to the right hon. Gentleman, I was able to pay a visit to the Midlands some little time ago, and one of the things that seemed to me to demand improvement was the facilities for some form of recreation in the evening for these girls, who are total strangers in what is to them more or less a foreign country. I drew the right hon. Gentleman's attention the other day to a case in the Aberdeen Sheriff Court where a number of girls were convicted for having left their employment, and put up as defence the fact that their billets were verminous and their food was very bad. He said he would inquire into it. That may be an extreme case, but I was rather impressed by the number of girls I spoke to who told me in every case that they had had to change their billets three or four times before they got decent accommodation; and that the

billets they were originally put into were most unsatisfactory. No objection whatever was raised to their changing their billets. Indeed the welfare officers of the Ministry assisted them. But it ought not to be necessary at this time of day for the girls to change as often as they have to in order to get decent accommodation. Some billets are good, but some are very bad. I do not feel that the welfare officers take enough trouble to go round and see for themselves, and insist on reasonable conditions. It is hard, that these girls should be convicted and fined or imprisoned for leaving billets which are filthy and verminous, and where the food is not good. That is not going to lead to an improvement in the war effort.
There is also, without any doubt, a great shortage of clubs for workers who have been transferred from one district to another. In too many cases they have no alternative after heavy manual work but to sit alone in their billets, or alternatively go to the cinema. I do not think that is good. How much does it cost to start a girls' club? Usually you can get some kind of private house which will be given for the purpose; but in any case it should not cost more than a few hundred pounds; and it is somewhere for them to go and spend their evenings together, and do their washing, and have all sorts of amenities. In Birmingham there are only half-a-dozen of these girls' clubs; but everyone I spoke to, including the officers of the Department, said there is a need for 25 or 30. I want an assurance that the failure to start them is not that the Treasury is not prepared to put up the necessary few hundred pounds. There may of course be other difficulties, but I urge the right hon. Gentleman to do everything he can to start these clubs.
A word, in conclusion, about agriculture. In regard to agricultural labour, I cannot speak for England, but I do know something about the Scottish situation, and it is a very remarkable fact that we are at present producing from a vastly increased acreage with actually fewer men employed than we had in 1939. We are now absolutely down to the bone as far as agricultural labour is concerned, and I beg the Minister not to call up any more labour from the land, either men or women. There is in particular inevitable anxiety about this year's harvest. It looks as if it may be the biggest that we


have ever gathered. I understand that plans have already been drawn up to get the maximum possible labour for bringing it in, but I ask the Government to lose no opportunity of appealing to every single class of the population who can spare even two or three hours a day at a critical time to give up whatever else they may be doing and help to bring in the harvest; because, after the tremendous effort that our farmers have made and are making, not only in Scotland but all over the country, it would be nothing short of a tragedy if we failed to bring in a considerable amount of food for the benefit of our people and of the Merchant Service, merely owing to the fact that proper arrangements had not been made to get the maximum available amount of labour on to the land. I am sure there is no-one of either sex who can spare the time who would refuse to do their duty, provided the facts are clearly stated and they are informed of the position. There is no doubt that last year the position was not adequately brought home to the vast mass of the people. There are signs that the Government are alive to the vital importance of propaganda. There is no propaganda more important than that which impresses all citizens with the absolute necessity of gathering the harvest. If the Government form their plans now and have a hurricane propaganda campaign they need have no fear that the whole of the harvest will not be gathered.

Dr. Russell Thomas: We appreciate the tremendous endeavour that is being made in the transference of labour and how willingly people are putting up with the physical and mental strain of being taken from their homes. But we do not always appreciate the great changes in the internal conditions of the population in the last two or three years and how willingly people accept every extra burden added to their backs and the curtailment of their liberties. I was interested in the remark of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) that we should prosecute the war in order that we might be worthy of our great Russian Allies—indeed, I yield to no one in my admiration of their endeavours. But let me remind the hon. Member, as I have said many times, and as I proudly say again, that this country bore the whole burden of the war for one year alone, and that we, almost single-handed, rushed in to

stand for liberty and justice. We, like Horatius in Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," held the bridge alone. The Committee will remember his words:
Who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?
Now other Captains have joined to hold the bridge: Herminius, Soviet Russia, on our left hand; Spurius Lartius, the U.S.A., on our right.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that he is repeating what I and my hon. Friends have said in the country scores of times. That was only one point I made out of about six.

Dr. Thomas: I am sure that my hon. Friend deep down thinks the same as I do, but it is worth repeating these things at times on the Floor of this House. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) referred, to the greater agricultural production in Scotland since 1939. That is universal throughout the country however, and the agricultural production in England is what it has never been before. The extra machinery, the work of the War Agricultural Committees and the direction of crops and so on, have largely been the cause.

Mr. Boothby: I did not say it was only Scotland, but I mentioned Scotland because it is more important.

Dr. Thomas: I agree; he may think so but the hon. Gentleman's remarks did not appear to me to have the depth we usually expect from him. The hon. Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate)—I regret she is not in her place—spoke a great deal about women dodging their responsibilities. There are, of course, some women who are doing it, but the women on the whole have not dodged their responsibilities. Too much attention is drawn to the few exceptions. Let us think of the women who have to bear the heat and burden of the day who stand in shopping queues and who have to look after the children. Let us concentrate on them instead of on the few blacklegs. I am again surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen should support such a proposition. I have had many complaints from my constituency about the hardship committees. It is said that they do not always act as tactfully as they should. They are often inclined to inquire about


the work a woman could do from her neighbours. Frequently women are called to investigate the affairs of their neighbours with whom perhaps they have not been on good terms for years—I have received instances of it—and the findings of the committees are not, perhaps, always what they should be. With all the regulations that are made and that are often so instinctively obnoxious to us there is a tendency for manners to deteriorate. That is a great pity. It is so much easier when compulsion is being used to say the right word at the right time. I am afraid that some of these abrupt manners are found sometimes in the employment exchanges. I suppose it is human nature, when small men find themselves in authority over others that that should be so. But it is a pity.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Bevin): I have noticed it in this House once or twice.

Dr. Thomas: That is beside the point; there may be need for it. I asked the Minister of Labour a few days ago a question about dock workers being sent a long distance back to their homes when they are slightly indisposed. Many London dock workers are working on the Clyde-side and like all of us at this time of the year get slight colds or something of the kind which do not entail more than two or three days' lying up, indeed, more often only a day or two by the fire. These men are sent long distances to their homes. There are, I understand, some hundreds of these cases; they are sent 400 miles to their homes because there is no accommodation where they are working. One doctor told me that he often had had three or four cases of dock labourers every week asking for certificates to show that they are fit for work, and on making inquiries he found that the men had come from Liverpool or the Clyde and had been sent home with a common cold because there was no provision locally for them. The Minister said in his reply to my question that transferred dockers were found lodgings in the port to which they are sent. The dockers say that the billeting arrangements are such that even if they get their clothes wet there are no facilities for drying, let alone being taken care of if they are slightly unwell. The Minister went on to say that should they become slightly indisposed and unable to receive proper care they could find accommodation in

the emergency hospital under an arrangement he had made with the Minister of Health in November, 1940. He asked me to let him have details of any case in which these arrangements had proved unsatisfactory. I am not going to mention a particular case now because there are literally large numbers of them. I have been particularly careful in making my inquiries. The Minister should assure himself that the arrangements made by the Minister of Health are what he said they were when he replied to my question. Something in the way of hutments or hostels should be arranged so that these men could be looked after by the W.V.S. or some other voluntary service and where the men could go and rest for two or three days. That would save an enormous amount of time, add to efficiency, and save the risk and discomfort of sending the men long distances by rail. Men would often rather work when they have a slight cold than travel long distances. People working under such conditions sometimes suffer effects which are felt for many years. The solution of the difficulty is simple, and I suggest that the Minister of Labour should take the matter up with the Minister of Health.

Mr. Bevin: If the dockers read the hon. Member's speech they will ask for a lot of dirty work money.

Dr. Thomas: I do not mind, but I sincerely ask the Minister to discuss this question with the Minister of Health and see if he can put this matter on an efficient basis, and eliminate this wasteful and foolish business.

Mr. McLean Watson: I am certain the Minister of Labour would have felt that something was wrong if he had not heard from Scotland in a Debate upon the transference of labour. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) intervened in the Debate, because some of the things of which he has spoken have received great publicity in Scotland, and we shall be wanting to know whether the charges which have been made against the billeting arrangements in the Midlands of England are true or are not true. The right hon. Gentleman has placed those who have to administer the law in a very awkward position. A sheriff sitting on the bench to try these cases must not take into consideration anything that is


put forward by those who are being tried respecting the conditions under which they were working. Those are matters which must not be laid in evidence. All that it is necessary to prove in the sheriff court is that the girls have refused to obey the directions of the National Service officer. If that is proven, then sentence follows automatically. There have been cases in Aberdeen and elsewhere in Scotland where girls have been either fined or imprisoned because they left their work in England without the sanction of the National Service officer, and that has created a considerable amount of feeling. The transference of girls from Scotland to the Midlands of England in particular has been discussed repeatedly in this House. We have been assured not only in the House but by some of our Scottish colleagues that there was not very much to complain about, but the fact that these girls continually leave their work and return to Scotland, refusing to go back and thus getting into trouble with the officers of the Ministry of Labour, shows that there is a problem still facing us in Scotland. We hope to hear the Minister say something which will allay the feeling that may still exist on this matter.
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen with regard to the location of industries. In recent months we have heard of new factories erected in Scotland, and we should like to know whether they are now in operation and whether there is a lull in the transfer of girls from Scotland to England. We also want information about these new factories. No matter how many factories may be erected and brought into operation now, the outstanding fact remains that Scotland did not get its share of the factories which it was necessary to erect for the war effort, nor did Scotland get her share of contracts for war work.
I come now to a rather different point, though one still concerned with the transfer of labour, and I am glad to notice that the Minister of Fuel and Power is present, because it is a point which interests his Department as well. Miners have been transferred or otherwise dealt with in various ways. First we had men brought back to the mines who had been out of the mines for years, who had been unable to get work in the mines until there was an outcry for extra labour. Then examiners

were combed out of a great many industries, and in that way the mines got quite a number of men who had been physically unable to work in the mines between, say, 1926 and the outbreak of the war. I should like to know what has been the result of that comb-out. Can the Minister tell us what percentage of those men have been able to stand up to the work they have been required to do in the mines? I am certain that the percentage is pretty low. If we had been living under normal conditions I venture to say that colliery owners would not have put up with the type of men they got from that quarter. Most of them were men who could not find employment in the mines between 1926 and the outbreak of the war.
There is another section who have been brought into the mines about whom I should like some information. For some time past it has been possible for young men of military age to opt for the mines. Rather than go into military service, they could choose to enter the mining industry. My impression is that those who make the best miners are those who go into the mines immediately they leave school and before they learn some other occupation, and I do not believe that the young men who have been permitted to go into the mines rather than into the Armed Forces are very much better than the previous lot I have described. They have this advantage, that they are young; on the other hand, the others were men with mining experience, though they had been out of the mines for years. The others are young men of 18, 19, 20 or thereabouts who have been in other occupations and have been transferred, in a manner of speaking, to the mines rather than sent into the Armed Forces. Have we been able to recruit any considerable number of young men for the mines in that way?
Now the Minister is to embark upon a new scheme which will bring about more transference of labour. Married women up to the age of 40 are being brought in either for part-time or full-time work, just as it can be arranged. The Minister already has power to bring in women, but the question before us is that of extending that power to cover women up to 40 years of age. As a result we may have younger women who have been found work in local industries transferred to other


districts and the older married women brought in in their places. That is necessary, I suppose, in connection with the war effort, and I daresay that the Minister of Labour will get through it as nicely and as pleasantly as he has done up to the present, but there is no question that he has had a very difficult job to do and he has done it very well. I give him that praise. He has done a good job in very difficult circumstances.
I do not know a Minister who has had a more difficult task than the Minister of Labour. He has had to do the most detestable things, things which I believe he detested himself. Matters get more and more difficult as we go along, and perhaps this job of directing married women into war occupations will be as difficult and delicate a task as he has ever had to face. We can sympathise with him, but at the same time we have these complaints about unfair treatment. I know of cases to which too little consideration has been given by hardship committees. The hardship committee could have been a little more sympathetic, could have shown a little more latitude in taking into consideration exceptional circumstances, and even when circumstances were not very exceptional there was often no reason why there should not have been a little more stretching of the Regulations. I am certain the Minister would not have objected to that; but some of the hardship committees have been a little too ready to stick by the strict letter of the law, with the result that there has been more friction in connection with this work than there need have been.
I hope that under the new scheme the Minister will be able to get things to operate smoothly and well. We want to help the war effort as well as we can, but we want to do so with as little friction as possible, especially in the homes of the people. I have taken up one or two cases with the Minister of Labour by correspondence. I communicate directly with the Minister regarding most of the complaints which come to me. In a number of cases recently the problem has been that of the widower with children at home. The eldest girl, who has been practically the little mother in the home, has been called up for national service, and the man has found himself in great difficulties. I know that the Minister of Labour claims that he has the right to direct some

one to look after the home in such cases, but that is not satisfactory. The Minister of Labour ought to allow more latitude in dealing with cases of that kind. If that had been done, there would have been far fewer complaints about the Ministry of Labour than there have been.

Major Sir Ronald Ross: I do not always find myself in agreement or in complete sympathy with hon. Members opposite, but I have much sympathy with the speech which has just been delivered. I think the hon. Member made his complaints with moderation and force. I have in me a certain partiality for Scotland, due no doubt to a remote Highland ancestry to which I attribute most of my more barbaric traits. The hon. Member put the case from the point of view of Scotland, but I would like to put it from the point of view of Northern Ireland. I do not know how the allocation of industry in regard to Scotland compares per head of working population with England, but I am sure that in the North of Ireland we have not had as much as we should have had, and that we have had a less proportion of work provided per head of the working population than is current elsewhere.
There is a special circumstance in relation to Northern Ireland. Through no fault of our own—the responsibility must be borne by the House of Commons at large—the National Service Acts were not applied to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland was the only area in the United Kingdom which did not give one vote against the principle of national service, and yet, by the votes of members from other parts of the United Kingdom, that law was not applied to us. I think it was a gesture of appeasement to Eire. Therefore, as a man will very often treat his life as of less importance than his job—hon. Members opposite are as aware of that fact as I am—if a man is called up, and then finds his job has gone to someone who does not approve of the war, the resulting position is not very encouraging to him, We have a considerable working population in Northern Ireland who need employment, owing to the fact that the Air Ministry have built very few aerodromes in the North of Ireland, despite our constant request that they should do so. There was a tremendous amount of work in the construction of aerodromes earlier in the


war, but as this work is completed more labour becomes available. If it is a hardship—I think it is—for people in Scotland to be transferred to England, it is a greater hardship to go from the North of Ireland to Great Britain, at far greater cost.
I think we all agree that in a time of national emergency one must put up with a reasonable proportion of hard cases, but there should not be any more than can be avoided. It is very hard for people to get back to Northern Ireland for holidays. There is a very strict restriction on travel. In addition to that, for some rather obscure reason, instead of the censorship being put on between the United Kingdom and the neutral country of Eire, the censorship is put on in the middle of the United Kingdom. Therefore, letters take a very long time, and every letter a worker over here writes to his family in Belfast, for example, is read by the censor. On the other hand, if someone in Dublin, say a friend of the German Consul, writes a letter, nobody reads it at all. It goes quite comfortably through the censorship without any interference. That is quite a hardship. I have received many letters from people who have been transferred to Great Britain complaining about the lack of holidays and how hard it is for them. It is a most unsatisfactory situation that so much transference should have taken place.
Obviously when the Government work is being settled, the Minister of Labour is the most important person among those who have to be consulted. He has to provide the steam, so to speak, that works the engine. It is no use putting up a factory without having the working people to run it. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman now that we really must have more war work in the North of Ireland. Otherwise we are threatened with an unemployment problem, a preposterous situation in time of war. We cannot carry on even the arts of peace, because the Board of Trade would stop us. The Board of Trade have complete control of other types of factory. All work is really war work or Government work. I do hot know whether that position attracts people to the idea of the Socialist State or not, but there are certain points about it which I should think would make even the most ardent Socialist a bit dubious. It would be a most remarkable breakdown on the

part of the Government if we could not have war work for everybody who wants it and, for the vast majority of people, work in the district where they live and have been brought up, such as in Northern Ireland. This movement of working people is a great hardship and is very unsatisfactory. I do not want to exaggerate, or to compare it with the slave labour which is moved from occupied countries into Germany, but it certainly breaks up families and leads to great discontent. I do not want to detain the Committee longer but merely to make my point, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind what I have tried to say.
The right hon. Gentleman has one of the hardest tasks of anyone in the Government. We all know what he is up against. I hope very much that I am doing him a grave injustice when I say that we rather think he has hardly realised with sympathy the particular problems relating to Northern Ireland. No doubt when he comes to reply we shall see, but I would ask him to use his influence to provide work in places where people live and that he should abominate the monstrous principle of using Northern Ireland as a kind of reservoir from which to cart workers to work in factories in other parts of the Kingdom.

Mr. J. J. Davidson: I rise mainly for the purpose of appealing to the Minister of Labour. I join with my other colleagues from Scotland in asking him to look specially at the problems that have been created in Scotland by the transfer of labour. I believe he has one of the most difficult jobs that the Government could give, and that his long experience has shown him that no matter what Regulations you lay down in any organisation, hardships must sometimes be created. I also believe that it is our place as Members of the House of Commons to point out those hardships to the Minister, with the hope of having them removed.
I want to put a point that has been touched upon by other speakers. For a considerable number of years I have fought regularly in this House for a fair allocation of war work to various districts in this country. I have fought for those in localities producing the necessary articles being given the first opportunity. Instead of transferring to big organisations


in the South of England millions of pounds' worth of work, this should be sent up to Scotland in order to give to firms in Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland every opportunity of taking part in production. Let me tell the Committee that in my own constituency is a firm who produce ventilators. They produce the best ventilator in the country. It has been tested and has gone through its trials, and it is much cheaper than the one which the Government are using in their ordnance factories, yet this one Scottish firm and its employees have suffered because of the Government's policy of handing over ventilator contracts for all the ordnance factories in the country to one big organisation in the South. The same is true of various other industries, such as the building and engineering industries in Scotland.
I approached the Ministry of Production and the Ministry of War Transport recently with regard to grease being sent along the coast from London to Scotland, when, in Glasgow itself, we have one of the biggest grease manufacturers in the country, but he does not receive an opportunity in any way of obtaining work for the Government in respect of this vital commodity. That is wrong. Those firms not on war work are having their staffs depleted. Men are being taken away and sent down to other jobs in the South of England. Girls have been taken away. At the same time the Government are paying extra money daily in transporting those goods to the North of Scotland and of England, although the goods could quite well be produced in Scotland, and the jobs be given to workers near their homes. I ask the Minister to examine this point: Let him go to various Departments, such as the Air Ministry, the War Office, the Admiralty and the Ministry of Production, and ascertain what contracts for the production of materials are being handed over to firms in the South when those materials can be made more cheaply and better in the North of Scotland or of England.
There is one reason why people from the North are being transferred to the South. I would like to make another appeal to the Minister to examine this point very carefully. I know there is great production capacity in Scotland untapped to-day. Many firms have been

knocking at the doors of the various Ministries to try to obtain employment for their people. In post-war reconstruction, women will play a very important part, and it would be a very unwise and unsafe policy to take away from any particular area the most virile of its womanhood. Thousands of girls have been transferred to the South. I say what Glasgow Trade Council said, which is that examination would prove conclusively that many of those transfers were unnecessary and had created unnecessary hardship.
I ask the Minister to examine the position in the hardship tribunals in the North, in Glasgow or any other part of that country. There is an opinion in the trade unions in Glasgow, a very definite and considered opinion, that the Minister has not the best type of representative on those hardship tribunals. I understand that many of them were selected from an old panel that we had for tribunals in the last war. Although many of them had some association in the past, I understand that they have not any real association with the working-class movement to-day or with the people. They may have had long years of service of one kind or another, but certainly they are not closely associated with present-day conditions. We are daily receiving definite complaints of cases of people who have not had the consideration they deserve. I asked the Minister some weeks ago to give me figures of the number of cases in my own constituency in which girls had appealed against being transferred on hardship or compassionate grounds and the number of cases where the appellants were successful. The Minister said it was very difficult to obtain those figures and that he would let me know. Surely he could have let me have those figures by this time for just one constituency where a hardship tribunal is sitting.
In my opinion the figure of unsuccessful appeals is very high indeed, and there seems to be a definite Regulation, that Regulation dealing with the women who are described as mobile, that, no matter what happens, no matter what circumstances are placed before them, many of these representatives on tribunals are definitely of the opinion that the Minister desires those girls of a certain age to be mobile, and that nothing can alter it. I ask him, I appeal to him, to make up his


mind that in each particular district or in each particular area there shall be left, no matter whether the Regulation describes them by age as mobile or not, a definite percentage of women. Let me tell him what happens in the North. You can drive all the young women away from Scotland, move them down here, turn down their cases, and you are going to fill your ordnance factories there with married women with responsibilities that must keep them from giving the full 100 per cent. productive effort which the young women who are single can give Therefore, I appeal to him to examine that position very carefully.
I have spoken to the Minister's Parliamentary Secretary about the number of women down here walking about, free and easy, who could quite well be in war work. London is a city of luxury industry, and I say to the Minister that unless his head is in the air or he is not using his eyes, there are hundreds and hundreds of women and men in London to-day who could quite usefully be taken to war work instead of brushing shoes and catering for other people's comfort in the luxury industries in London—thousands of them, not hundreds of them. Therefore I ask the Minister not to keep turning his eye on the North, not to keep taking the women away and reducing the virility of war production in the North, but to turn his eyes to the luxury industries in the South. I say that there are literally hundreds of women down here who have not done one stroke of war work. I will give an instance. I know of a young woman here who volunteered for war work in London and was sent to a West End hotel as a telephonist by the employment exchange. I do not say that the Minister is responsible for all the different ideas of different managers of employment exchanges or of National Service officers, but I do ask him to issue a statement from his Ministry asking those representatives of his in the employment exchanges, and the National Service officers, to exercise a little more humanity, to be a little more lenient with these cases when they come before them, and I believe that if he does, we shall have a greater war effort than possibly we are having at the present time.
I join with those who pay tribute to the Minister for all he has done. I do not believe there is any other Minister who would undertake the sort of work he has

got. It had to be a Member of the Labour Party who would accept that job. We do not find the aristocracy of this country undertaking the job. It is a job which brings the Minister a certain amount of dislike, certain reproaches that are undeserved, from a great number of the community. It is practically the first time the job has occurred in this country of breaking up many homes by taking away girls who have never been away from home before. I ask him to see to it—I know he is human—that his own officers in the Ministry and the various exchanges insert a little bit of humanity into the administration. If that is done, I believe he will be much better liked in the future than he has been in the past.

Mr. Simmonds: My hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill (Mr. Davidson) has spoken of the great experiment in which the Minister of Labour is engaged on this issue, and I think he has also shown that it is almost inevitable that in any matter of this scope the shoe should pinch in some constituency or other. I am confident that the Minister is paying attention to those points raised by Members to see to what extent the problems can be remedied. But for the moment I would like to ask the Committee to direct its attention to the problem of the women who are at the moment in industry. According to an investigation which I have made, it would seem that in the light engineering and allied industries possibly some 75 per cent. of the women remain in their jobs a year or more, and of the balance of 25 per cent. the average time which they stay in their jobs is only about four months, which means to say that there is a turnover in this 25 per cent of 300 per cent. per annum. I rather think, when I have been talking to those who are responsible for operating these schemes, that this division among the women as to those who do stay in their jobs and those who move about too much, has not been adequately considered.
The woman who has been in a job for a year, even if she be regarded as unskilled, perhaps would by then be regarded as semi-skilled in some intelligent undertakings, but whether it be the one or the other, the fact remains that that woman knows a very great deal about the job which women who have only been working upon it for a few weeks or a


few months cannot hope to have. The production of this woman is therefore on the average sizeably above that of the women who have joined more recently. As any hon. Member knows, whether they be interested in industry from the point of view of management or trade unionism, the production bonus records amply prove this point. I find that when it is proposed to reduce the number of women in an undertaking in order that they should be transferred elsewhere, there is almost complete regard paid to the question of personal mobility, whether a woman is tied or whether she is not tied in her home, and I think that that is a most vital matter to consider.
But after that has been taken into consideration, I would appeal to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to consider whether he should not, after he has made this first test, give special consideration to those women who by nature stay in the job that is given to them. It is no good taking those good women out of the industries they are now serving in, making them resentful, taking them away from their homes when they have been doing a good job of work, and turning them from the 75 per cent. of stable women into the 25 per cent. of highly mobile women. That, I am certain, is sound politics and is certainly sound production, because those women who have been in those jobs for a time do form the backbone of manufacturing organisation in our works with which it is unwise for the State to tamper. I hope that when he replies the Minister may be able to give some assurance that those people who have stayed put at his request, who have borne the brunt of monotony, shall have some special consideration in the national interest as well as a personal reward when this question of transfer arises.
There is just one other point I would like to make to the Minister. I am told that in Birmingham a very large number of the workers at Christmas time, when they went back to their homes in the North-West and on the North-East coast for example, were away for a very considerable number of days, in many cases without adequate cause being shown. It may be said that that is inevitable, when you send away from home women, and above all young women who have not been away from their own locality previously.

But what I would ask him to do if he would, when it comes to future public holidays, is to look at this matter from the point of view of what will almost inevitably occur, namely, that these women will again feel that they are entitled to some prolonged period in their home locality. I think therefore that the Government might do wisely to give some general guidance to industry recommending that those women who have been brought long distances from their homes should be given some special length of period leave at the public holiday with the right of making up the time when they return to work. That at the moment would not be possible in many industries, because the factory inspectors would not permit the time to be made up. When I suggest that the time should be made up, I suggest it for two reasons; first, because if it is not made up, there will be a loss of production; and, secondly, because the workers Would wish to make it up themselves, because with the prolonged holiday they lose their earnings and will want to make them up when they return to work. This is not something that can be done except with national approval, and I would like therefore to ask my right hon. Friend whether, when those public holidays come round again, he will give special consideration to making an announcement that will guide industry as to the way in which they shall overcome something which cannot be stemmed, but which will either take place under control or uncontrollably. My feeling is that these people stand entitled to some special consideration, and I know that the Minister will do what he can to see that it is given to them.

Mr. McKinlay: There are just two points I want to make, but in the first place I want to express my amazement that no representative of the Ministry of Production is here, because they are partly the villains of the piece in what is being discussed to-day. I do not know whether I should be in Order in moving the Adjournment of the Debate until a representative is here. I think it is an insult to the Committee that he is not here.

Mr. Bevin: He has only just gone out.

Mr. McKinlay: They must change so often that I failed to recognise him. I want to raise two points, one in connection


with the transfers and the calling of low category men from what in my view is essential work and placing them elsewhere. In food distribution things are getting to such a state of absolute chaos that it is almost impossible for food distributors to carry on their business. Food distribution cannot be carried on by children of 14 to 16 years of age, in view of the multifarious Regulations and instructions issued by the Ministry of Food, not to mention ration books and point coupons, which, unless I am misinformed, are to be extended in the very near future. Grade 5 men who were grocery managers are being put into the Pioneer Corps to dig holes, yet I know of a man who is propped up by the doctor every second day to supervise a staff of girls, the eldest of whom is 17, in a shop which has 2,500 or 3,000 registered customers. That cannot go on without the risk of a breakdown. I am not asking for special treatment for the distributive trade, but I say that a man in a low medical category can serve a much more useful purpose assisting in the distribution of food than by digging holes, as a member of the Pioneer Corps.
I would appeal to the Minister to dismiss some of the lawyers who are acting as chairmen of the tribunals. The chairman of such a tribunal is not called upon to determine questions of law, but only to determine questions of fact. Difficulties are created by chairmen who are totally lacking in human understanding or association with working-class life. They work to a rule of thumb. The tragedy of it is that very few have the courage to give a decision on the facts put before them. They think that the applicant has the right of appeal. It is the applicant who is turned down, and the onus of appeal is placed upon him. The most successful chairman of a court of referees that we ever had in Scotland was a layman, with only his common sense to guide him, I am sure that other hon. Members must have had the same experience as I have had, of seeing chairmen laboriously writing down a justification for decisions they were about to make. It is time that persons with human understanding were appointed. Surely, if questions of law were involved the regulations would not prevent an applicant taking a legal adviser with him,

to argue legal points. I am certain that many of the difficulties encountered by those tribunals have been due to the fact that whole tomes of umpires' decisions are quoted in connection with cases that are not at all similar. I used to have a technique, as a trade union officer—and the Minister will forgive me——

Mr. Bevin: Why should I forgive the hon. Member?

Mr. McKinlay: Whenever I was asked to represent an applicant, and reference was made to an umpire's decision, I used to make the chairman—knowing that umpires' decisions are like legislation by reference—go on turning up decisions until we had fixed our finger on the original one. After two or three experiences of that kind, the chairman used to say, "How many cases have you here this morning?" Then, automatically, he lifted the green slip, and granted the claim, and said no more; because he knew that the bulk of the umpires' decisions to which reference had been made had no relevance at all.
I want to raise another aspect of the same subject. Notices are sometimes served on persons to whom deferment has been granted. The notice says that the Minister has decided to exercise his prerogative, and it is signed by the national service officer. It cannot be very comfortable for the Minister to have people taking about him all round the ring. I know a case where the mother, who is suffering from tuberculosis, has three children to look after, the eldest being six years of age, and the father is a steel minder and fixer, doing an essential job, working on reinforced concrete, near his home. The local tribunal granted deferment until August. The Minister, exercising his powers, is appealing to the umpire against the decision of the local tribunal. I do not desire that any person should be given a loophole through which to dodge national responsibilities; must of us on this side of the House have given all we have got. But I ask the Minister to give us some hope that this machinery will be overhauled. It would be interesting to know the number of cases in which, on appeal, the National Service officer has failed. It is all very well to tell the applicant that the case will be heard either in Edinburgh or in Glasgow, and that if he desires he can


be represented, but in nine cases out of ten the people are quite bewildered, and do not know anything about it until they get the final notice that the National Service officer's appeal has been upheld. On the question of transference of mobile women workers, I congratulate the Ministry on having at least ended the bluff by which they sent for married women, interviewed them, and almost gave the impression that they had power to direct them into industry, when they had not. Some women in Scotland have been interviewed before the Ministry had power to do so. Some of these women have left their children at day nurseries—or left-luggage offices, as some people call them—and have started to look for part-time, or even whole-time, jobs. I think the time has come when the migration of girls from North to South should cease. I could say many bitter things about the persons responsible for concentrating industry—as it appears to Scotsmen at least—in that part of the country from where we get our cock-eyed economics. Mobile women should be found employment nearer home than the South.

Dr. Little: I want to support very strongly the appeal made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross). It is easy to move workers from one part of Great Britain to another, but very difficult and trying to move workers from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. We are doing our very best in Northern Ireland, and we want to continue doing so, under the least trying conditions. The travel permit system weighs very heavily against our men who cross to this country to engage in war work. A few men bring their wives with them, and when their holidays come the wives cannot accompany them home to visit their friends. A wife in such a case can cross only twice in 12 months; so, as a good and dutiful husband, the man is in honour bound to remain here. That is both tantalising and expensive. We have made the strongest appeal to the Ministers of Labour, Supply, and Production, to have more factories erected in Northern Ireland, and more workers employed there. This House would be ashamed if it knew how few factories have been erected in Northern Ireland in 3½ years of war, and how few people are employed in these. I have been given the number privately, and I am not going to state it. The

House should be ashamed to think that there is a single unemployed person in any part of the United Kingdom. We are doing our best to win the war. Why should our workers be dragged across to Britain, and then replaced in Northern Ireland by workers from Eire? That is a very roundabout method. If you require workers from Eire, why not bring them straight across here, and allow our people in Northern Ireland to stay at home? It is a tragedy, even in war-time, to take a father away from his wife and family, at a time when his children specially need a father's attention, and then to replace him by somebody else from across the Border. Again I say, bring workers from Eire here direct, and let our people do their work at home. I would appeal to the Minister of Labour, who is doing so much, to look into the condition of Northern Ireland, and not to be satisfied until, in conjunction with the Minister of Labour over there, he has ensured that there is not a single unemployed individual within the bounds of Northern Ireland.
I think that the representatives of Northern Ireland can say that our people are willing to rise to the occasion, but they feel very strongly that they should do war work at home. One of my own constituents was deprived of a lodging allowance on the ground that he came from Eire. That is the first time I have heard that County Down is in Eire. I wish civil servants would learn that County Down is not in Eire, but in Northern Ireland. When they want our people to come across here they should sec that they are treated kindly, but I ask the Minister to make an effort to provide work for them at home. It is at home where they can do the best work. We all do our best work at home, surrounded and encouraged by our wives and children. It is bound to be a weight on a man's heart to have to come across here and leave his wife, and, maybe, a number of small children, and he cannot do his best.
I ask for more work in face of the number of unemployed in Northern Ireland to-day, and it is not for the credit of this Government or our own Government in Northern Ireland that there should be so much unemployment. These people want work. When they have been discharged, it may be a long time before they can get work again, and this is most


discouraging. The number of factories erected and of people employed is comparatively small. I appeal—and I hope it will not be in vain—to my big-hearted right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. I congratulate him as much as anyone in this Committee for what he has achieved and is achieving, and I appeal to him to put his heart and soul into this matter and to give Northern Ireland a lift and see to it that our men and women, who are ready to do war work, and who are as deeply interested as any people anywhere in the defeat of Hitler, are given a fair chance, without favour, in order to do their best to help towards winning the war. I appeal for more and still more factories and for more and still more workers to be employed, and then we shall have much more work. Let Northern Ireland get its fair share, and the men and women will rise to the occasion. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give us a fair crack of the whip. He may depend upon it, we shall do our part faithfully. Cease taking and bringing our people across here, under the permit system and all the rest of it, and let them work at home, and the work will be done infinitely better, and there will be much more of it accomplished.

Mr. Stephen: I wish to join with my colleagues in the discussion of this matter, as I am very dissatisfied with the way in which things are being done in Scotland. I was against the giving of so many of these powers to the right hon. Gentleman, and the experience of many of my constituents has wholly justified the opposition that we took to powers being given in this way. In Scotland the administration is not what it ought to be. From the office in Edinburgh downwards there has been a general lack of consideration and of common sense. I was talking to my colleague the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) about a case he had had of a man, head of a family of nine, the youngest of whom was 2½ months old, who was being sent away from Glasgow to the Shetlands. If was only at his intervention that this sort of things was prevented. There was no one to assist the mother in looking after and caring for the children, and yet officials and members of the local committee were so lacking in common sense, not to say humanity, as to act in that way.
In regard to the interviewing of women, some idea should be given of the ages of the women officers who undertake the task of interviewing others. There is something very unsatisfactory in a young Service officer telling a much older woman that she ought to go and work in a different part of the country. I put a Question to the Minister of Labour a long time ago as to the age of the Service officer at the Bridgeton exchange, and I was answered by the Parliamentary Secretary, not the one now sitting on the Bench opposite, but the big one. He was getting me the information, and afterwards, while giving me certain other figures, he told me that he did not think he was entitled to tell me how old this woman Service officer was. If these women are in the Service, they should be in the same position as men. I have always been an advocate of equal rights for women, and I have not the slightest doubt that I would have got the age of the National Service officer when asking how long he had been employed, but evidently the chivalry of the gigantic Parliamentary Secretary was such that he did not feel inclined to give this information. I had a constituent in the W.A.A.F. and she appealed in order to try and get out of the W.A.A.F. because of the hardship occasioned through having an invalid mother, and that Service agreed to her release. Then the Ministry of Labour National Service officer in Glasgow wanted to send her away again; some stupid woman, a woman who is a danger to the country, wanted to send this young woman away again from Glasgow when the other Service had allowed her to come home. There ought to be a change at the head in Glasgow. The person responsible for the administration should be fully informed that the House of Commons Insisted that, if this legislation was to be operated, it must be operated as humanely as possible, and with the officials responsible showing the utmost common sense.
I gather that the Minister of Labour is in rather a hurry, and I do not want to delay him unduly, but I feel, along with the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. McKinlay), that, while Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom, at the same time one has to realise that there is also a national tradition. We suffered a tremendous lot during the years of unemployment, and if all these virile young women are taken from Scotland to the


Midlands, then it will be fatal for our country in the future. I hope that the Minister will consider that he has had sufficient Scottish girls drafted to England and that he will also see to it that his officials in Scotland show much more common sense and sympathy, and that young women in the Service offices should not interview women much older than themselves. I would like to know the ages of the women who undertake these interviews and how many of them might be suitable persons to undertake this work in England rather than their victims.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Ernest Bevin): I have been wondering to-day whether this is a transfer of labour Debate or a Scottish and Northern Ireland day. At least we have this satisfaction, that we seem to have managed England and Wales fairly well in this problem. If we have not, then perhaps hon. Members will write to me after the Debate. If I may make a general observation, it is that it has been encouraging to hear of the affection of husbands for their wives. There have been pleas that they should not be parted. I am glad that seamen do not argue that way, otherwise we would have to double accommodation aboard ship, and we should be landed in many difficulties. In any case, I do not know what is the real opinion of wives about it. They never tell us; they have a marvellous way of keeping their counsel.
Let me make it clear at the onset that this problem of the transference of labour is represented by about 10,000 women. Since January about 90 per cent. of them have been volunteers; only a few from training centres have been directed. I gather that hon. Members want me to promise not to take another volunteer. Well, in Scotland now, due, I hope, to the work which my Department have done with others, there is considerable scope for employment as compared with a year ago. While the question of buildings and all the rest of it is difficult we have, nevertheless, adapted a lot of factories. There was a problem at Dundee, where I met the Lord Provost and a number of councillors, with the result that the problem is almost solved there now. There is a vexed problem in Edinburgh at the moment, but I think our pressure must be kept up until we use the unemployed women there.

Another black patch in Scotland is at Aberdeen, where there is scope for employment in a variety of ways. We had to create in Scotland some scarlet areas owing to the growth of production there. We say to the girl transferring from a town, "You can go from the East of Scotland to the West of Scotland, or to the Midlands. Which will you have?" Invariably the girl chooses the Midlands rather than going from the East to Glasgow. That is a fact. We allow them to exercise their choice, but I cannot keep these girls in their precise place at present in Scotland, any more than I can do the same thing in England.
It is said that Scotland has been badly treated, but may I point out that London is still a great industrial centre? That is probably not recognised. Someone said that London is a luxury place. It is nothing of the sort. London is not walking along Oxford Street or Piccadilly. That is not London; that is a little fungus which has grown up in the middle of London. It is not Londoners who are there as a rule; very few Londoners are there at all. [An HON. MEMBER: "Do they come from the country?"] Perhaps some hon. Members might have discovered that for themselves. In any case London, in spite of her tremendous demand for labour for her industries, is transferring far more people to the Midlands and to the North-West than is Scotland. Some of the difficulties of transference in London are more extensive, because of daily travelling, than the transfer of people from one town to another in the Midlands. It is said that there are great hardships, but this idea that some are being picked out and served badly is all wrong.
Let me say this to Scotland. I have had a good many happy associations with Scotland, in which there is one of the largest sections of the union I had the honour to represent. I heard a good deal of talk about hardship tribunals, but if I may say so I was always glad that I was never branched in a Scottish branch. I found that if one ever overstepped the rules the Scottish legal mind was such that the fine was about double that which would have been imposed in London or anywhere else. The imposition of rules under Scottish mentality used to be one of the banes of my life. If I appointed an Englishman to take charge of Scotland, then there would be a row on the next Scottish Estimates, so I have appointed


a Scotsman. But there are still complaints that the Scots are ill-treated. What am I to do? [An HON. MEMBER: "Appoint an Irishman."]
Now let me deal with Northern Ireland. First may I say to my hon. Friends that they can help themselves there? Dilution, expansion of management of the aircraft industry, output and all the rest of it, have been nothing like what there has been in this country. We developed employment in Northern Ireland hoping that skilled men would be spread so that unskilled men could be used. That is what we had to do in this country. I know of no place in the country which has had the aircraft business almost thrown at its feet as Northern Ireland has, yet the output has been nothing like what he had hoped it would be from there. When you start expansion and dilution, you immediately bring into train smaller sides of the industry to feed it. There is one thing about the people in London that is in their favour, and that is that somehow or another, when they get into this area, they are more adaptable than they ever were before.

Sir R. Ross: If it is the right hon. Gentleman's advice that greater dilution should take place in the big aircraft works there, is he quite confident that that will meet with the views of organised labour?

Mr. Bevin: No, I do not think it will; it did not meet with the views of organised labour here, but it had to be done. We have to face these problems. I have been facing them ever since I have been in the Government. We have to get over them. My feeling, to put it no higher, is this: whether or not you get through with these schemes really depends upon the spirit and outlook of the men at the top. If there is not drive at the top, if there is not imagination at the actual managing centre, you will not get drive through to the bottom, no matter how much you talk. Therefore, I am convinced that what is needed—if I may say sp with respect, as I have said it to the people from Northern Ireland who have been to see me—is a little drive and enterprise on that side in Northern Ireland. This would have a magnetic attraction.

Sir R. Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman say that to the shop stewards?

Dr. Little: Will the right hon. Gentleman use his influence in Northern Ireland to get labour dilution? He has found fault with the aircraft industry there, and it all arises from that matter. Will he use his great influence with the organisations there to see that there is the same dilution of labour as here?

Mr. Bevin: I have done that, but I must confess that in all the process of trying to develop this war industry, it must not be assumed that it is all the men or all the management. That would be a wrong assumption. You have to remember that in many of these older types of industries, such as shipbuilding and heavy engineering, the management is as conservative as are the men, and each side is as bad as the other. When there is brought in an entirely new development, such as aircraft, flexibility is very hard to get on either side. There must be an enlightened, up-to-date, managerial outlook if you are to get progress, I find that if the men are taken into confidence regularly, with proper production committees or works committees, and the thing is explained to them, it is not very long before things start and develop aright.
This Debate originally arose from the statement made on 19th January by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Production. I do not think I need add to what the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) read from that statement. It is true that there will be more people employed this year in munitions and certainly a big call-up for the Services during the year, and the man-power situation will be intensely difficult to get over. But we can exaggerate the amount of disturbance that will take place. The number of people who will actually be affected in proportion to the total will be comparatively small. Unless the Committee and the Press understand, there is sometimes a tendency to magnify the movement of 1,000 or 2,000 people as though you were upsetting the whole war industry of the country. We are not doing anything of the sort. This will be to some extent a question of pockets or the movement from specific production.
I have been asked whether we are consulted in the planning of the changes. Yes, we are. When the Minister of Production, after appropriate consultations, has to drop down on one line of production and go up on another, the Ministry


of Labour are in the discussions the whole time. We get advance knowledge of the changes in the Departments. One little machine that works extremely well, and to which I would like to pay a tribute, because it has not been heard of, is what is called the Labour Co-ordinating Committee. This body was established when I was on the Production Executive. It consists of the chief Labour Department officials of the respective Ministries. They meet every week or fortnight and they have all the preferences and changes before them. Through that body, without any fuss or bother, the changes are made and notified to the Regional Controllers outside. It is just one of those little pieces of machinery without any staff. The work is done by the respective staffs when the officials go back to their own offices. I think they have done a very good job indeed. That gives us a picture of the respective Ministers' decisions, of each change in the priorities, and each change in respect of raw materials and allocations.
I would like to deal with various problems under their headings, because so many hon. Members have referred to the same topics, and it will save time if I follow that method rather than deal with the points made by each hon. Member who has spoken. The main problem is the question of what is called immobile labour. You know, one cannot have a perfectly arranged war. It is absolutely impossible. One might as well say that instead of fighting on a battlefield and transferring millions of people overseas, one should arrange for the fight to take place on every village green or at Wembley and have done with it.

Mr. Stephen: The leaders could fight it out.

Mr. Bevin: I am uttering no challenge to the hon. Member, because I think it would be taking advantage of him. I doubt whether the development of production for war purposes could have been planned perfectly before the war. How could you have done it? How could you have known what form the war was going to take? Since I have been in office I have seen one scientific development after another. For instance, take one thing that agitates our minds every day of our lives. It is not only labour that we have

to take into account but, with the tremendous movement of goods and troops and all the rest of it, and the tremendous ventures that lie ahead of us, with all their risks and possibilities, we have to pay great attention to transport. Probably one of the most vital keys in this business is transport. Therefore, if you complain that you have no fish, it is not because of the wickedness of my Noble Friend the Minister of Food, but because of transport necessities. Equally, when you have to man a factory here or there, or to adapt capacity here or there, you have not only to consider labour but to consider to what extent you can reduce the movement of raw materials, goods, components and the rest of it. Rubber, petrol, all sorts of things, come into play.
In this connection there is being developed with a great deal of success through the regional boards what we call the capacity organisation, and one way we are trying to reduce removal of labour and save transport and all the other things that come in to obtain economy and to help to make the thing more efficient is to get all the principal contractors and manufacturers of the Government producing Departments, when they have to place orders, to look for accommodation within a reasonable distance of the main factory. It takes time, but it is developing now. We certainly want to avoid the movement of goods, as well as people, from one end of the country to the other, for the sake of economy if we can. The two things are to a very large extent bound up together. The second step that we have taken on this problem of mobile labour is that we are going to direct married women without children. We are hoping by this means to utilise every possible woman that we can in the locality in which she lives and to force employers to take as many part-time women as they can of that character to save having to move people from elsewhere.
I have been asked about subsistence allowances, accommodation and welfare. It is very easy to take a few cases which may have gone wrong and brand these billets as verminous. Some of the cases that I have had to investigate have been bad, but both men and women are ingenious when they want to get out of a difficult situation, and you cannot take everything at face value. Are not many of


the women who are letting these billets the mothers of families who have given up part of their houses and themselves have the whole of their family life disturbed, with the arduous work of keeping their hopes going, entitled to some praise and some credit for the great service that they have rendered?. The mothers of England who have taken in these thousands of people and overcrowded their little domestic hearths are entitled to our gratitude for the services that they have rendered to this country as much as those who have gone into the factories. There is another difficulty about this question of dirt in the homes. These unfortunate people have not been able to have the house repairers and decorators in for over three years, and it is a frightful difficulty to keep a house right and protect it against deterioration, crowded with lodgers as they have been, with neither public authority nor the building trade able to keep decoration and the rest of it up to date. These things in the progress of the war have been acting and interacting on one another and have produced intense difficulties. I hope when we have made progress with the work of repairing bombed houses—that is the first essential for next winter—to be able to-proceed with secondary repairs. If there is criticism, I ask hon. Members to realise that these people, and we ourselves, have been under a very difficult strain.
We give subsistence allowances for people travelling away from home. There may be some criticism of the amount charged for lodgings. We have kept it at about the same level on the whole. The difficulty does not rest with the landlord so much as with the tenant who is letting apartments. That is a terrible problem to control. The greatest exploiters are the people who let rooms, or part of their houses, and when a man is transferred for a considerable time and wants his wife with him there is often a heavy charge for a couple of rooms. It is administratively almost impossible to get over the difficulty. I do not know how you can do it unless you requisition the whole of the working-class houses in a great city. That raises problems of administration that want a great deal of thinking about.
I have been asked about travelling expenses beyond a certain distance. Where you have a fixed thing like a Royal

Ordnance factory it is not difficult to work. They arrange to pay when fares exceed 3s. We offered to try to make similar arrangements if it was fixed up between the union and the employers. Many of the unions have travelling arrangements. In the building trade I have had to meet it in quite another way, and general satisfaction has been found with the travelling recovery scheme. In a City like London, where you get all this cross travelling, it is almost impossible to arrange a scheme at all. On the whole it can only be made when fixing rates of pay, and in most of the London rates the wages are usually graded slightly higher than those in the provinces, and travelling to some extent has been taken into account.
It was suggested that hotels should be taken over. Here again we are presented with a very great problem. We have beautiful hostels, but we have had a terrible job to fill them, even with all their amenities. One of the troubles is understandable. It is the British character. If you are going to house a thousand girls, in one building, it is an unsocial sort of existence compared with what they have been used to in a mixed home. On the other hand, the mixed hostels also present difficulties of management, but I think that in some of the towns the smaller mixed hostel works very well. The question of social existence comes into this business. When you say to a girl, "There is a nice environment, as good as a first-class hotel, only more comfortable than most and much cheaper," and then offer her a billet with Mrs. Jones in Such-and-Such Street, she will more often than not select the billet. This is a human problem, and hon. Members cannot expect me to decide for the girl. I would not try. We have kept on these hostels. They are a great reserve, and although there has been criticism there would have been no criticism if there had been heavier blitzing, for they would then have been a great standby.
I was asked whether we were getting the production we ought to get. I shall never be satisfied with production until we have won the war. On the other hand, I am bound to say that if you have regard to the size of our Forces, to the young manhood we have taken out, the checking of the normal flow into industry of young men and women, to the fact that the average age of people left in industry is


nearly four years more than when the war broke out, and that we are holding our own with anybody in the world on the production field, I do not think there can be much to complain of. I am bound to pay my tribute to the tremendous and hopeful development in management. There is growing into existence a type of managerial outlook and association with the people on a common level in our factories which I believe is one of the greatest assets we are producing for the post-war period. The war has helped us to find great managerial ability and has awakened native ability which we did not know we had. It has given thousands an opportunity that they would never have had had it not been for the war. I think that the feeling is growing up that both sides in industry have a job and that less conflict will arise in the doing of it.
The point was made that we could do more if we had dealt with the question of more food for the heavy workers. I was one of those who opposed that idea before I was a Minister. I saw it in operation in the last war. I do not know anything that caused more disgruntlement and trouble between house and house, family and family in the same street than that scheme. You had a miner or a steel-worker living next door to one another and they got the extra rations, but somebody next to them did not quite come within the same category and they did not get them. There is nothing more likely to cause trouble and domestic disturbance than that. Before I was a Minister I urged upon the then Minister of Food on behalf of the Trades Union Congress that we should have communal feeding instead. I believe that that has saved the situation. We have carried it out by canteens and have done it without coupons. In that way there is a sort of extra ration. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning took a wise decision when he was Minister of Food in arriving at the conclusion that communal feeding was the best, and I would not like to see us go back on that system.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My right hon. Friend will remember that we did not press that request for a supplementary ration and that we accepted the policy of communal feeding. What we did say, however, was that as the Ministry's policy was to develop communal feeding in industrial

areas we were entitled to ask why more British Restaurants had not been opened.

Mr. Bevin: I cannot answer that question. This work is done through the local authorities, and my experience of my Noble Friend's administration is that if any trade council or trade union has appealed to me or my welfare department for an expansion of British Restaurants, no one has been more active than he has-been to develop this communal service. I do not think it can be said of the Ministry of Food that there has been any backwardness on their part, but if there are any particular cases where British Restaurants are needed, I shall be glad to follow them up.
I was asked about Colnbrook, and my information is that it would soon be in use. I was asked also about opting and transference. Up to now nearly 3,000 have opted for coalmining and 1,375 have been placed. It must be appreciated that this opting business is not a wholesale transfer of people. Each case has been selected and put in for training and all the rest of it.
Great play was made about dockers and hardship. I do not need to be stimulated to have sympathy for the dockers. I find that the average weekly number of dockers on transfer in the last three weeks from all ports is only 2,400. We have had no evidence of the transfer of unfit men. It is worked through their own organisation, and the arrangement to send men home was a part of the claim that was made to us to give them that facility. Another hon. Member said that we ought to give greater facilities for people to go home when they are sick. The hon. Member for Southampton (Dr. Thomas) complained because we had sent men home when they were sick. We had better continue what we are doing because between the two hon. Members it seems to be about the right thing to do. It is not correct to say that there are not facilities in Greenock and Scotland for the dockers to get treatment. As one who knows them well, I can say that the more sympathetic your ear, the greater sometimes will be the story you are told. They used to try it on me but I got used to it. A point was raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Molton (Mr. Lambert). The first election I ever remember was when he was returned to Parliament at a by-election in 1891. You can guess how


young I was, because I was on a farm then, and I very well remember his being returned. I think the suggestion was that the labour, or perhaps the industry, should be transferred to an area which is safe—I do not know whether I quite got the point—instead of the labour being withdrawn from factories to man new war factories.

Mr. Lambert: Labour is being transferred from factories which are fully engaged with work to man new factories in very vulnerable areas.

Mr. Bevin: We are bound to do that. I suppose it is purely a question of mobility. There is a factory in a safe area where there are a number of mobile workers and there is another factory in a vulnerable area. You cannot close down the factory in a vulnerable area.

Mr. Lambert: But you have not manned it yet.

Mr. Bevin: The probability is that it is equipped with machine tools for a particular class of production. However, I would ask my right hon. Friend to give me particulars, and if I find there is any slip-up or difficulty I will look into the matter very carefully. Sometimes what is done looks very peculiar, but there is a reason for it, after all.
The hon. Member for South-East Southwark (Mr. Naylor) raised the question of the transfer of dockers. That matter has been straightened out. There is a new agreement on the way. But I would utter this warning. Whenever it is necessary to make a change in connection with the employment of casual labour, one finds a number of people who will fight against the change even though it may be in their own interests. People who do not like a disturbance of old habits will try to break up the scheme in its initial stages. I beg hon. Members not to be influenced by agitations of that character. In trying to improve things for the post-war world one will certainly run against the habits of people who will not want changes to be made. But one must always have regard to what people will think and do in the next generation. Any reformer must always be working not for the present generation but for the next. Those of his own generation will

generally oppose him. That has been my experience in trying to work out schemes of this character. If it were not so, there is scarcely one newspaper which would be alive. They live, as it were, on what is likely to appeal to their readers on the day the paper appears, but statesmen and reformers have to look a day ahead, and that is why they are always in trouble.
Now I come to the question of agricultural labour. The agricultural problem will present tremendous difficulties this year. I do not want the Committee to assume that we have left it until now, before beginning to organise. We know, or at least we expected, that the assistance we have had in the past from the Armed Forces would not be available this year, and we have had to measure the problem accordingly. We have to balance the strategy of the war against the claims of the harvest and of industry and all the rest of it. It is a long-term problem to work out and it has not been dealt with in a haphazard manner. But my task is a very complex one, in conjunction with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Agriculture for England and Wales. We have to prepare for the loss of the help from the Services, and at the same time to arrange for the in-gathering of what I hope will be a larger harvest. The Committee will not expect me to go into details of how it has been done, but I can assure them that the Departments are working in close co-operation and examining and arranging for every possible source of supply of labour, in order that we shall not fail to harvest one ounce of the food which the farmers and their labourers produce. We shall struggle hard to achieve that end. There I feel like risking the suggestion that it would be a good thing if the House adjourned in the harvest period and everyone went harvesting. It is vital to our wellbeing that we should get all the help we can at that time, and I hope all who can will go harvesting.
A point has been made about domestic service. This is another very anxious matter. I do beg hon. Members not to exaggerate differences in households. I have enough jealousies to contend with now. In every case that is examined, a lot of things are disclosed in interviews which we pledge ourselves not to reveal, and I cannot always explain just why


we have done such and such a thing in one case and something else in another. On the whole, I think we have acted pretty fairly. But that does not solve the problem. I am convinced that the time has come when we must try to organise a collective domestic help service, though I have not decided exactly what steps should be taken to achieve it. It is a very vexed problem. It is not a domestic help problem in the sense of the problem confronting those who were able to employ domestic help before the war. The problem is much bigger than that. We have not enough maternity hospitals, we have not the lying-in arrangements, we have not enough midwives or nurses. We are organising that side of the problem. The real problem is the type of help we must organise to tide the ordinary person over difficulties which arise from temporary illness, maternity, the husband's illness, or the illness of children—all that kind of thing. It may be a dream, but I will try to do what I can with the help of those whom I intend to ask to assist me with advice. I hope to announce at an early date that we have been able to start, at least, the development of some form of service, and the principle upon which. I have been working, though I confess I have not fully worked it out, is on the lines of the district nurse service some expansion of that. We want a service under which a woman, whether in Poplar or in the West End, who wants domestic help can get it.

Sir Percy Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman extend the principle of district nurses?

Mr. Bevin: That is the kind of principle on which I am working, but it is a vast organisation to create and develop and hon. Members will appreciate no doubt that I cannot elaborate my suggestion now. I think I have covered most of the points which were put up in the Debate. There are still the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Duddeston (Mr. Simmonds). I cannot answer him now, but I will undertake to study with care what he said, and see whether anything can be done.
With regard to returning home for holidays, great difficulties arise. The trouble in Scotland at Christmas was a very human one. It does not arise at the

other holidays. In England we keep Christmas and in Scotland they keep the New Year. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hogmanay."] A girl is given a voucher to go home on the Christmas Eve, so that she can keep up Christmas. She celebrates the English holiday but when she gets home she stays there to keep up Hogmanay. It is a very human thing and I decided not to bother very much about it. I thought that was the commonsense thing to do and, as far as I know, nothing very serious arose. You get the same trouble again in Northumberland. The Northumbrian worker is English at Christmas and Scottish on New Year's day. So far as the shipyard workers were concerned I thought I had better forget it and not have an argument about it. It was quite improper that I should do so, judged by what the Orders said; but I do say, as far as those districts are concerned, that when the boys went in they worked, and at the end of the month they had made up all that was lost. That is to their credit, and we did not suffer. So there is something to be said for the suggestion of the hon. Member for Duddeston about whether we could not invent something which would keep those people in good heart to make up for the time lost. That suggestion rather appeals to me, and I will study it and see what can be done. I should now like to express my appreciation of the——

Mr. R. J. Taylor: In regard to holidays, will the right hon. Gentleman deal with the case where a travel voucher, probably worth 7s. 6d., is given to the woman who has been directed into the industry, while the volunteers have to pay ordinary fare, although they went into the industry without being directed? Will the right hon. Gentleman take that matter into consideration?

Mr. Bevin: I will look into that point. It is a vexed problem where to draw the line. I have studied it and extended it a little from time to time, but I will look into it again. With regard to travel generally, and to the holidays between now and next Christmas, which we hope to be in a position to announce in a few days, I hope that everybody will encourage people not to travel. This year is most vital for the movement of our Forces and munitions, and for the tasks we have to carry out. Anxious as parents are to see their children who have been transferred, I


would remind them that the one great help they can give now in the war effort is to encourage everybody to "stay put" during the coming year. If that can be done, our work will be facilitated and a good deal of transference of labour in other directions will probably be prevented, because we shall be given greater stability. One of the troubles of this transference is connected with the point made by one hon. Member, concerning the turn-over of labour. If that could be reduced by the greatest possible stability being encouraged, our problem would be reduced to a minimum.
I would like to conclude by thanking hon. Members for the tribute they have paid to our staffs and to our Department. We have had to carry through a difficult job. I know hon. Members like to tell us now and again that we are a little troublesome, harsh, cruel and the rest of it, yet, on the whole we take it to our souls that there is another side of the work. I feel the greatest sense of satisfaction in being able to say to the Committee now, that I never believed, and certainly did not believe when I took this office, that any Minister of Labour could survive this task for two years and nine months. I believed that there would be so much ill-feeling and difficulty created in view of the character and temperament of our people that it would bring two or three of us down before we were through. To arrive at the end, I conscientiously believe that there is a general concensus of opinion among the British people, much as they have had to be ordered, moved about, conscripted, and the rest of it, that we have tried our best to do a difficult job and have done it in the sole interests of winning the war.

Mr. Lawson: The House is very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the very full and informing speech he has made and the explanation he has given of his Estimates. I do not know whether it is because I have been so long away, but it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has not only been informing but has been even genial to-day, in the information which he has given. As a matter of fact, he is becoming—and I do not know whether he will take this, on reflection, as a compliment or not—a real House of Commons man, in his method of expression. There

is this fact about it all, that the right hon. Gentleman can claim—I should claim for him, anyhow—that there are very few people who would have lasted two years and nine months at that post. I think I express the feeling of the House in general when I say that the right hon. Gentleman has rendered a very great service indeed to this country during the time that he has filled that office.
It is with all the more regret that I differ from him and have some criticisms to make of his outlook in handling this problem. When I was away out of this country, I heard a long statement on the wireless about a new concentration of industry and I asked myself "Who is going to get it this time; who is going to lose and who to gain industry?" I asked that question because some of my hon. Friends and I for 10 years before the war had experience of losing industry and works. Let nobody be under any illusion about this shifting-over of industry. Some of it is temporary but most of it will be permanent. If factories are closed down in some parts of the country and new factories are opened in other parts of the country, these new factories will not stand idle after the war. They will be used. What has been, and is, taking place, all unconsciously it may be, is nothing less than a re-orientation of industry, which will have a profound effect upon the lives of the people of this country in the future. I listened to the right hon. Gentleman to hear in what part of the country the factories were to be closed and where they were to open. The right hon. Gentleman said they would come out in pockets. We know something about that, because South Wales was a pocket, Durham was a pocket, Scotland was a pocket, and so was Yorkshire. Great industrial centres were pockets and the people poured into Coventry and into London. When you speak about London you speak of a vast county with one-quarter of the whole population. The right hon. Gentleman says "Yes, but once they get down here they are more adaptable than they would be in other parts." I ask the Committee to notice that. It seemed to me that that was a kind of complacent view which did not exactly fit in with the facts.
We have had experience of that adaptation in some parts of the country. Why is this country in trouble to-day about coal? It is because of that same point of view. It is simply because whole families


were broken up and transferred to other parts of the country. Parliament, by its policy over the past 10 years, is directly responsible for the shortage of coal in this country. What is to happen this time? It is said, "We will transfer workers from one part of the country to the other." It is a pity the right hon. Gentleman did not speak sooner because the fact has emerged pretty clearly that there does not seem to be any relation whatever between arrangements for war purposes and future post-war conditions in this country. I know it is quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman says, that war does not allow you to go here and there and to do things in a fancy way, but that does not hinder the Government from having some relation in their mind between the present and the future. I know something of this problem. In the North, where I have had some little responsibility, I spent some time trying to get Government representatives who were building factories to have some plan in their minds related to the future, but one might as well have talked to that Box.
I think it is a tribute to the House of Commons that we can discuss, in the spirit of this Debate, the present question of transference. It is an amazing thing, after travelling through various countries, to come back here and listen to the House of Commons discussing in quite a placid way, as though it was always like this, the best ways and means of ordering people to go to various parts of the country and to do certain work—to do just what they are told. It is rather amusing too. I have seen some British Colonies during the past few months. I have seen some of this objective Imperialism which we sometimes hear about at work. I have seen market places in British Colonies which British housewives to-day would think were El Dorados for shopping purposes. As a matter of fact I enjoyed myself for a change, but it was good to go round one of these depressed British Colonies and to see ail kinds of good things which I had not seen for a long time myself. Also you could not order one of those natives to cross the road, let alone order him to go into a factory. But here we are taking quite calmly, this discussion about ordering people, girls, to go from one end of the country to the other, to certain factories and, as I say, to do just what they are told.
That is a very big thing. It is a grave responsibility to lay upon Ministry of Labour staffs, but on the whole I think those staffs have discharged their tasks quite well. Incidentally, I have watched certain people in this Committee who have always been concerned about Orders and Regulations. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. E. Smith) drew attention to them. They have always been very much concerned about this new system of putting great power into the hands of civil servants. They rise up in their wrath, and criticise this tendency to put power into the hands of civil servants. There has been a strange absence of that here to-day, and we have put into the hands of civil servants the power to order millions of men and women about in such a way that their whole home life will be disturbed and sometimes consequently damaged. The deduction I make is that the people who are concerned about watching Orders and Regulations are not concerned about how much they affect the great mass of the people but are concerned only in so far as these Orders and Regulations interfere with certain private interests. When they are busy again I hope I shall get a chance just to point the moral and adorn the tale.
It is, as I say, a very grave responsibility to lay upon civil servants. On the whole they have done the work well, but I do not know, for instance, and have never been able to determine, how they decide when a girl has to go into the Army and when she has to go into a factory, and when she has to be ordered away as a transferee. I should like to know on what principle that decision is based. For instance, I know very well that sometimes a mother is ill and that there is grave need for the girl to be near home and so she goes into a factory. But I had a case the other day of a family which had three boys in the Army, one of whom has been killed. The only girl in that house was sent away into the A.T.S. If she had remained at home, apparently, she would have been transferred. I should like to know upon what principle such a decision is based. And is it not time, if you are going to have to transfer girls, that the hostel system was more developed than it is? Surely, there is great need for that. It is all very well criticising some of the homes to which the girls have to go but it is often hard lines on people who have to


take in a lodger—just as much as it is for the people who have to go there. Everybody knows that before the war the housing situation in most parts of the country was not good, yet people have had to take into their homes girls—and men, too—who have been transferred. It is marvellous that the mass of the people are taking this transference as they are taking it. It is amazing how this Order is working, and how it has become a commonplace of our life. But there are families who have suffered great hardship. The Ministry of Labour would do well to give more careful thought to the condition of those families.
I rose chiefly to speak about the Minister's exposition of his case for the shifting over of industries. There appears to be a complete lack of plan concerning the changes which are taking place in industry and which will not be temporary. I hope at some time to come back to this subject. We had 10 years of it; I saw men's souls mauled by this kind of thing; and the Government must have some plan. We are not going to see in future, without some revolt, whole communities broken up in great areas of this country. There is such a thing as corporate life—family life and the life of villages and towns. The Government must have regard to that. Not only does the livelihood of our people depend upon it, but it is the very soul of that thing which we call England.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Tomlinson): What my hon. Friend has just said calls for some reply from me, although some of the questions he raised were dealt with by the Minister. I do not think the Minister would take exception to the line which has been developed since he left. I can assure the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson), with regard to the closing down of factories, that over 80 per cent. of the workers released will be in red and scarlet areas. [Interruption.] I forgot that my hon. Friend has been away from this country for so long. Perhaps I should explain that "re" and "scarlet" relate to the density of people in those areas, from a production point of view. I know it has been felt that too many factories have been put in some places and not nearly enough in others. To the extent that the present movement can rectify that position this will be

done. My hon. Friend referred to developments which have taken place here, and pointed out that the Minister has been able to exercise powers which we did not dream of exercising in the Colonies, and yet that in the main it had been done without a great deal of complaint. There is a little publication, which has not received the attention that I think it deserves, and which can be obtained at the Vote Office. It gives an account of the welfare work carried out by the Ministry in the last 12 months. I think that a good deal of the smooth working in regard to transfers is due to the splendid job done by the people who have been engaged by the Ministry for the purpose of welfare work since the war began. Many have had little or no experience; I have met these people, and have heard of the difficulties they have had to overcome and the way they have overcome them. I got a report from one inspector who had worked a long time in the North of Scotland. She is a woman who lost her husband in the Glasgow blitz. I think that all the money spent by the Ministry of Labour in this way would be justified by the influence of that woman alone in some of the camps for the building industry in Inverness-shire.
My hon. Friend asked me who decided whether a girl of military age should go into industry, into the Services, or elsewhere, and on what grounds the decision is made. An individual in that age group decides for herself whether she will go into industry or into the Services. She has the right to opt, and I know of no case where an option made by a girl for industrial work has not been accepted by the Ministry. But if the girl comes into industry, she is under the same obligations as if she went into the Services. If she is in the age class and single, she must be prepared to go where she is sent, unless, in the same way as in the Services, hardship can be shown. Just as the individual who opts for the Services can appeal on hardship grounds, so in industry the question of being sent away beyond travelling distance of her home is dependant on circumstances, and there is an appeal on the question as to whether she is mobile or immobile.

Mr. E. Dunn: Is that statement really in accord with practice? In my own district girls are being transferred to work in a factory in Leeds. I


heard of one girl being moved from home on the Monday morning to this factory in Leeds, and within 24 hours the girl's home was visited by someone who wished to arrange for lodgings to be provided there for another girl, to be brought from another part of the country. What basis have we for this kind of thing? These girls have spent two years in training, and moving them from one factory to another, where they have to be retrained, and bringing in other girls to take their places, cause hardship in my constituency.

Mr. Tomlinson: If my hon. Friend will send that case on to me, I will look into it.

Mr. Dunn: It is not a question of one case but of a number of cases.

Mr. Tomlinson: If my hon. Friend will send a number of cases it will enable us to look into the matter. Regulations have to be drawn up relating to the whole organisation.

Mr. Dunn: Do I take it that until this case has been cleared up affecting the movement of 300 or 400 girls, no more girls will be moved, in view of the undertaking to look into the matter?

Mr. Tomlinson: I cannot give an assurance that no girls will be moved until we have had an opportunity of looking into the matter, but I can give the assurance that no girls will be brought from outside to take the places of those moved whilst the question of the need to move these girls arises. There have been some instances, as there must be in mass movements such as have been taking place. This may be a new development because of the circumstances of the moment, but we have been transferring people for so long that we realise the difficulties which may arise. It is not, and never has been, the desire of the Ministry—and I am sure the Committee will realise that it is not the desire of the Minister—that we should bring a girl away from her home and put another girl in her place, if the two girls can easily do the same jobs without transferring. I think the Committee will give us credit for not wishing to do anything as foolish as that. With regard to hostels, I can assure my hon. Friend that if that were a solution we would be delighted to carry it out. One of our difficulties is to get young people who have been transferred to remain in hostels, which we

consider much better than billets. Human nature is a curious thing, but the desire of girls in any part of the country to share the home life of somebody, no matter how good the hostel, is amazing. The home seems always to be preferred to the hostel. I will see that what has been said with regard to the other matters is brought to the attention of the Minister. I assure my hon. Friend that I come from one of those pockets where lack of foresight on the part of somebody led to very difficult and heart-breaking situations, and anything that my right hon. Friend and I myself can do to prevent that sort of thing in future will certainly be done.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported upon the next Sitting Day; Committee to sit again upon the next Sitting Day.

Orders of the Day — FIFE COAL COMPANY (MINERS' WAGES)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Mr. Gallacher: On Tuesday last I gave notice that I would raise on the Adjournment a serious matter affecting the miners in Bowhill Pit. The trouble there arose out of the fixing of a ton rate. It is necessary that Members of this House should understand that Bowhill Pit is recognised as a highly paid pit. There is no question of miners getting extravagant wages, but Bowhill is recognised as a highly paid pit for the district. Negotiations took place between trade union officials and employers on the question of a ton rate, but a satisfactory arrangement could not be arrived at, and with the endorsement of the men the matter in dispute went before a neutral chairman. This chairman, after hearing the assessors on either side, gave a decision with which the men were completely dissatisfied. They engaged in what was known as a "ca'canny" or "go slow" strike. It may be said by the Minister or Members that the men acted wrongly in showing their dissatisfaction in this way, and while I would not support such action, and told the men that I would not support their line, I can understand and justify their dissatisfaction with the neutral chairman and the way affairs were conducted.
What was the position? The company offered 1s. 5d. per ton for stripping the coal in the affected section. The union was standing for 1s. 9d. In the negotiations that went on the company raised the price to 1s. 6d. The men were not prepared to accept that, and so, as I have said, the question went before a neutral chairman. Of course, when a question goes before a neutral chairman all offers are off, but the men were not conscious of this. They honestly believed that what was going before the chairman was 1s. 6d. or 1s. 9d. a ton and that the chairman would decide as between the two, or something in between the two. The union officials put forward 1s. 9d. a ton to the neutral chairman, but the Fife Coal Company, utterly unscrupulous, not concerned with the new spirit of co-operation in industry and in the pits, offered 1s. 2d. Even the Minister was astonished when he knew of that. What the neutral chairman had to decide was not as between 1s. 6d. and 1s. 9d. but as between 1s. 2d. and 1s. 9d. The chairman, a legal gentleman from Lanarkshire, gave a Solomon-like judgment. He said, "One and ninepence is too high, and 1s. 2d. is too low. I propose 1s. 5d." This was a penny less than the employers had offered, in negotiation, and the men felt that they had been tricked, and that was the reason they put on a "ca'canny."
This went on for two weeks, then a meeting was held by trade union officials, but it was not successful, the men decided to go on with the strike. The following day 42 strippers were dismissed. This was on a Monday. On the Tuesday, the preparatory men were asked to strip the coal. They refused, and they were sent out of the pit. This led to a progressive worsening of the situation and the possibility of a complete stoppage at the pit. On that Tuesday night, following the dismissal of the preparatory men, I was in the area addressing a meeting of a Cooperative Women's Guild. The men asked me to go and speak to them at a mass meeting that was being held. I spoke to them, and I spoke very strongly on the need of maintaining production. As a result of my efforts, I got a decision that the preparatory men who had refused to strip would go down the pit next day and strip. That decision made the situation easier. I got in touch next day with the

labour officer, and he put me in touch with the managing director of the company, and I got an arrangement that the 42 strippers would be allowed to go back to work on condition that they signed an agreement not to pursue ca'canny any more. I got a deputation of the men to visit the office of the trade union and discuss the matter with the trade union officials and come to an amicable understanding with them as to how the matter should be developed. As a result of this, the men returned to work, each of them signing an agreement not to carry on the ca'canny policy any more.
Two weeks later I got a telegram from the miners at Bowhill Pit telling me that five of the strippers had been dismissed and asking me to come to Bowhill. I saw the Minister and asked him to arrange for one of his representatives to meet me the following day at Bowhill so that we could have a talk with the men. The Ministry got in touch with Edinburgh and their representative met me there, and we met the strippers and discussed the situation. Those five men had a very low output, but each of them gave to the representative of the Ministry the reasons their particular output was low. In the case of the remainder of the 42 men, there was no question but that their output was good. Arising out of this meeting, I wrote a letter to Lord Traprain, and I received in reply a letter in which Lord Traprain informed me on the functions of a trade union. Not only did he inform me what the functions of a trade union are, but the Minister lined up with Lord Traprain and also informed me what the functions of a trade union are. I have been a member of my trade union and participated in all kinds of trade union activity for the last 30 or 40 years. I would like the Minister to tell me how long he and Lord Traprain have been in a trade union.
Who is this Lord Traprain? He is a director of three steel companies and the chairman of one steel company, a man who is intensely interested in cheap coal and in cheap labour in the coal industry. Associated with him, as Coal Controller in Scotland, is the Chairman of the Coal Production Committee. And who is the Chairman of the Coal Production Committee? Mr. Carlow Reid, managing director of the Fife Coal Company, who, when he went as Chairman of the Coal Production Committee, nominated his son as managing director of the company in


his place. Sitting side by side with Lord Traprain is the leader of the Fife Coal Company, one of the ablest of the mine-owner's representatives in Scotland, and obviously capable of directing all that Lord Traprain is doing. I put a Question to the Minister on Tuesday. He suggested that I was putting a wrong interpretation on the letter. I will read it, in a moment and hon. Members can judge whether the Minister is concerned with protecting a Member of Parliament or with protecting this Scottish coalowner. I asked, following the Minister's reply to my Question:
Is the Minister not aware that these strippers are being deliberately victimised arising out of the policy of the Fife Coal Company? Will he read the first paragraph of the letter from Lord Traprain if he says my interpretation is not correct?
I meant him to read it to the House. He did not read it. The Fife Coal Company has a large number of pits in the Cowdenbeath area of my constituency, and the Wemyss Coal Company has a number of very important pits in the Buckhaven side of my constituency. Why is it that there is continual trouble with the Fife Coal Company and we never hear of any with the Wemyss Coal Company? I insist that it is because the Fife Coal Company are determined to bring the wages down to the lowest minimum of the district, and they have been pursuing this policy in the Bowhill Pit for several years. The Minister, in reply to my Supplementary Question, said:
I not only will read it but I have read it. I would also recommend the hon. Member to read the last paragraph, with which I heartily agree, which says that it is not his business or that of the Ministry to interfere with the existing machinery.
What machinery? Has not this House the right to approach the Minister, and has not the Minister the right to approach Lord Traprain? I asked:
Am I to understand that Parliament, which guaranteed to protect the miners and other workers when their trade union rights were taken away, has no right to interfere?
How dearly beloved the trade unions have become now. Ministers are anxious to leave everything to them, when they have not the power that they had to protect the men. The Minister answered:
I never said anything of the sort.
Mr. GALLACHER: The Minister referred me to the last paragraph.
Major LLOYD GEORGE: I simply said, and it is important that the hon. Member should understand it, that there is machinery in

existence between employers and men for negotiating wages, and it is not the purpose of this Ministry to interfere with that machinery. It is for the trade union concerned to ask for the assistance of my Ministry, in which case it will be forthcoming.
Mr. SLOANE: Is it a matter for the Minister to intervene when 300 tons of coal per day are being lost?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th February, 1943; col. 1580, Vol. 386.]
I should like hon. Members to pay attention to what I said in my letter to Lord Traprain arising out of that meeting held with representatives of the Ministry present, and I should like the Minister to pay particular attention to it. I do not like a non-unionist like the Minister or Lord Traprain instructing me in trade union matters.
This is my letter following that meeting:
DEAR SIR,
When the dismissed strippers at Bowhill returned to work they gave me a pledge quite voluntarily that if at any time trouble developed at the pit they would not stop work but would immediately communicate with me.
This is a decision which the strippers took apart from signing an agreement with the firm. They took it on their own accord:
When therefore a week ago four strippers were dismissed they wrote me about it without delay. Unfortunately through some mischance the letter did not reach me. Getting no reply, they sent a wire on Thursday urging me to go to Bowhill. I spoke to the Minister and asked him to get in touch with your office and ask for the services of Mr. Barbour. I am very pleased that he did so and that you found it possible to send Mr. Barbour and Mr. Heron to Bowhill. I cannot speak too highly of their conduct and of their handling of the situation. The strippers felt right away that they were men who fully understood their work and the difficulties arising out of it. Mr. Barbour spoke to them as though he had been down in the section sharing their toil. Mr. Heron put in a shrewd question here and there which always succeeded in clearing up points which were confused. I am sure the meeting with the frank exchange of views had the best possible effect on the men. Their grievances I will place before you and suggest for your consideration what might prove to be the remedy. The question of ton rate I will leave aside"—
that is the question of wages—
That is a matter for the union and I am sure it is being effectively handled.
Is that clear enough for the Minister to understand? They do not have to tell me that the union deals with wages. I know it. The letter continues:
The other matters in so far as they affect production are within your province.


(1) Bowhill has always been a well paid pit. This because of the efforts and organisations of the men. For several years there has been a deliberate policy of trying to break the wages at Bowhill. The present manager is alleged to have said, 'I am here to break wages.' This policy which has caused trouble in a number of sections during the past several years must be stopped.
(2) The manager is exceptionally offensive towards the men and many of the remarks attributed to him are sarcastic and insulting. One man in the presence of several others said to me, 'I am sometimes afraid to go into the pit. I am afraid I'll lose control of myself and find myself in jail.' You should send for the manager and have a serious talk with him. He must be made to understand the importance of co-operation between the management and the men if the best results are to be obtained.
(3) The manager has no real authority or responsibility for running the pit. The pit is run by 'remote control.' Over the manager is an agent. Over the agent is the managing director, Doctor William Reid. Before the manager can decide any important issue he has to get the endorsement of the agent and of the even more 'remote control' at Cowdenbeath. This means that the manager or alleged manager must often suffer from frustration, and this would explain his cynical attitude towards the men. It is possible that what he meant in the phrase referred to in paragraph (2) is, 'I am not here to manage the pit. I am here to break wages.'
Possibly something like that was in his mind, I consider it an impossible way to run an industry. I suggest that the manager be given full control of the running of the pit, and that authority to interfere, except through you, be taken away from the agent and from the managing director at Cowdenbeath. I am certain if the manager is given power and made responsible to you for production the trouble at Bowhill will come to an end and that it will surpass all other pits for production.
That is the letter I sent to Lord Traprain on the question of what was holding up production, suggesting steps that could solve the problem and difficulties and increase production. As for the wages, that was a matter for the union. The Minister may say that the dispute secretary of the union, Mr. Peter Henderson, objected to my interfering in this affair. Of course he did. I do not know whether any of the other miners' unions have a dispute secretary, but in Fife there is a dispute secretary, and he is so harsh in his attitude that he will not let another official of the union interfere in any dispute. I am 100 per cent. for the union, but I do not want the argument brought up here that the dispute secretary was opposed to my taking part in any of these discussions, or in any pit discussions,

without this being considered, because, as I have said, it is notorious that he objects even to the other officials of the union interfering when there is any dispute. It is his province and must be retained as his province, and nobody else dare cross the chalk line or take any part.
Lord Traprain sent me a reply to this letter. I invite the Minister to read to the House the first paragraph of that letter, because the Minister said that I misinterpreted Lord Traprain. I want him to get up and repeat that after I have read out the first paragraph. The Bowhill Pit is a high-paid pit. I have said that on two or three occasions, because this must be understood if we are to understand what the Fife Coal Company are doing, what Lord Traprain is conniving at, and what the Minister is conniving at. This is the letter:
DEAR MR. GALLACHER,
I have received your letter of the 3rd instant. I am somewhat surprised at the suggestion that the management at Bowhill is 'out to break wages.' I believe it is true to say that the Fife Coal Company have not broken a rate for the last 20 years. I suspect that the truth of this matter is that the company, while not wishing to break any existing rate, felt that future rates which had to be negotiated should be on the basis of those current in the district and should not be higher simply because the colliery happened to be Bowhill.
Is not that clear enough to anyone, as clear as clear can be? We have been given the most wonderful promises about the future. A new world: security, better times than we have ever known before. We have been given the most attractive promises. If only the miners would work hard, if only the engineers and transport workers would work hard, oh what a square deal they would get in the future. Now the Fife mineowners, backed up by Lord Traprain and backed up by the Minister, inform us that, instead of better conditions for the future, the Fife miners are to have worse conditions for the future. In negotiations that affect the future the Bowhill Pit has to be brought down to the lower rate that applies in the district as a whole. It is there in the first paragraph. I challenge the Minister to repeat in this House the suggestion that I have misinterpreted Lord Traprain's letter. He is endorsing the policy of the Fife Coal Company, which is responsible for the trouble at Bowhill and is now responsible for trouble at another colliery,


Valleyfield, where there is a strike on now. The letter went on:
With regard to men's alleged complaint about the attitude of the manager, this should, in my opinion, be referred to the trade union and I do not propose to intervene.
The attention of the Scottish Regional Controller is drawn to something which is of a very serious nature, as it affects production, by a Member of Parliament but he does not propose to take any notice of it. The Minister is anxious somehow or another to protect the trade unions.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Beechman.]

Mr. Gallacher: But he does not seem to be concerned to protect the rights of Members of Parliament. I ask hon. Members, If we see in any district something happening which is holding back production, have we not the right to draw attention to it? Here is a man in Edinburgh, Lord Traprain, who is responsible, through the Minister, to Parliament. He is not responsible to the Trades Union Congress. Does the Minister want to suggest that?—but Lord Traprain says, "I am not prepared to recognise Parliament." He says that to a Member of Parliament, and the Minister endorses it. The Prime Minister has said, "I am a House of Commons man." But the Minister of Fuel and Power does not seem much interested in House of Commons men. He seems to be anxious to strip the House of Commons of any responsibility. Lord Traprain goes on:
I feel bound to tell you, however, that Mr. Barbour does not share the views on the manager which you express in your letter and did not feel that the men made a very good case in this connection.
There was another representative there who had been a manager himself in many pits, and he was sitting beside me taking notes. He agreed with me, I am certain, that, as a manager, he had never heard anything like what he had been hearing at that meeting. Why is he not mentioned? The letter goes on:
With regard to your third point that you felt the manager suffered from too much interference from other officials of the company, I can say quite frankly that I should not feel justified in questioning the company's domestic

policy on this sort of point unless I had good reason to believe that it was causing inefficiency. I think it would be very difficult for anyone to suggest that the Fife Coal Company is inefficiently run.
I would like to ask the Minister how often the Fife Coal Company's pits have been closed or partially closed—sections stopped. That means something inefficient. If the manager at the Bowhill Pit was responsible to Lord Traprain for production, there would be a far better state of affairs than there is at present. The manager now cannot make a decision about anything, because he has to see the agent, and the agent cannot make a decision of importance because he has to see the managing director. Give the manager responsibility for the pit and make him responsible to Lord Traprain. Lord Traprain goes on:
May I say in conclusion that I feel quite certain that your intervention in this matter is prompted by interest in increasing production?
Very nice and patronising of Lord Traprain. I cannot say the same for him. His interest is not for increasing production but for getting down wages. He goes on:
But the trade union exists to investigate grievances which the workers may have and to try and get them put right, if they are satisfied as to their substance, and the trade union officials in Fife would justifiably resent any interference on my, part where grievances are concerned unless such intervention came at their invitation.
So please close down Parliament and leave Lord Traprain to attend to what is going on outside. Time and time again I have brought questions affecting industry before various Ministers, and I have received on different occasions letters from Ministers thanking me for having brought their attention to the various matters. As a consequence of having done so, changes have been brought about, and new conditions have been introduced that have been of the greatest value to production. For a man who is responsible to Parliament to dare to say that Members of Parliament have no right to take an interest in production, whether it is in a pit, an engineering shop, a railway or whatever it is, and to draw attention to wrongs they think should be righted, is intolerable and should not be allowed by this House. The 42 men, with the exception of five, continued working, and then a week ago the whole of them were dismissed again, and the managing director of the Fife Coal


Company made a statement in the Press that the men had broken their word and were carrying on ca'canny again. The whole of the Scottish Press published what he said, and maybe some of the English Press also. There is not a word of truth in that. The impression was given that the men were working the way they were before they signed the agreement. I have the figures here in my possession, but I cannot deal with them just now. But the men showed me their pay lines from the Fife Coal Company, and there is the tonnage they were producing, and the tonnage they were producing proves that they were not pursuing a policy of "ca'canny," that they were doing their best to give production, but because of the determination to break the men and maybe because I had the audacity, as a Member of Parliament, to interfere, the men are dismissed, and before their appeal is decided—their appeal against dismissal—I get this letter:
You will have received my further letter regarding developments at Bowhill about leaving the district. This has been cancelled by the National Service Officer in favour of a stricter measure. We have all or mostly all received notice to attend on Tuesday at Kirkcaldy for medical examination for the Armed Forces.
There is such a demand for coal and strippers, they are so valuable, you cannot get them, and here you have a steel master, Lord Traprain, a director of three steel companies interested in cheap coal and cheap mining labour, conspiring with the Fife Coal Company to break the wages, and, because the men have resisted, to drive them out of the pit and break the spirit of the pit. There is some talk now, because there is a terrific ferment going on in Scotland about this, about making an inquiry. I want to know from the Minister whether there is to be an inquiry into the conduct of the Fife Coal Company in connection with this pit and the Valleyfield Pit, in order to ensure that the men who are employed by that company get full satisfaction, that they will get every opportunity for expressing their grievances and getting them remedied by a responsible manager at the pit. Give them that, and I am certain that from these pits you will get as high a production as, if not higher production than, from any other pits in the country.

Mr. Sloan: I do not want to take up the time of the Minister, who has to reply, except to say that I hope that in the course of his reply he will tell the House whether he is going to do anything in this dispute. The matter is becoming very serious. Calling up these men for medical-examinations is tantamount to saying, "If you do not accept the conditions the employers offer you it is you for the Army." They directed some of these men to work as far away as Northumberland, and because they refused to go to Northumberland they are now called for medical examination.

The Minister of Fuel and Power (Major Lloyd George): I am sure the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) will not mind my saying that he has taken a larger field for the remarks he has made than I thought he would have done in view of the Question last Tuesday. I am not complaining, but I am sure he will not expect me to cover the same wide field. As far as I can gather, he has charged me with trying to teach him his business as a trade unionist, of which I fail to find any evidence in anything that I have said or written; also, he has made a vicious personal attack on the Controller for Scotland, which is entirely without justification, in support of which he has produced no evidence whatsoever; and I absolutely deny everything that he has said about him. I stand by my answer last Tuesday, that the implication that the hon. Gentleman drew from that letter is not the right inference. I have read it several times since, and I still think so. He suggested that I am making an attack on the rights of Members of Parliament. Where on earth does he get any support for that contention?

Mr. Gallacher: When Lord Traprain says, and you support him in saying, that he is not prepared to listen to a Member of Parliament drawing attention to something that is holding up production, or that a Member of Parliament considers is holding up production, is not that sufficient?

Major Lloyd George: Not only did he not say it, but I have never said it. May I go further? On the only occasion on which the hon. Gentleman has come to me to ask whether he could get assistance from my regional controller in order that he might use his influence with his constituents,


who are miners at Bowhill, I went out of my way to send a telephone message to my office in Scotland asking that every facility should be put at the hon. Gentleman's disposal—and may I say, in passing, that I got into serious trouble with the union in Fife for doing it?

Mr. Gallacher: There you are.

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Gentleman did not disclose to me at the time that he was going up in connection with this particular dispute, but he said that he would be able to use his influence with those men who were doing this "ca'canny." I was very grateful, and went out of my way to help him, because I thought he had the same object in mind as I had.

Mr. Gallacher: I showed the Minister the telegram I got from the Bowhill miners, saying that five had been dismissed and that the situation was very serious. I said that I was going up on the night train, and would he arrange for his representatives to come and meet me? I know that after that an objection was made by the disputes secretary of the union. He wrote to Lord Traprain and objected, and as a result of that objection I got the letter from Lord Traprain which I have read, refusing to recognise a Member of Parliament.

Major Lloyd George: That is not so, and I will not allow the hon. Gentleman to get away with it. If I may say so with respect to the hon. Gentleman, I have as much love for Parliament as he has. I have always considered it the right of Members of Parliament to be given every facility to assist their constituents. We are all agreed on that. I go further, and say that it is the right of trade unions who represent organised labour in this country to conduct negotiations on behalf of the men they represent. I personally—and I think I can say this for any Minister, and I could say it for myself when a private Member—would not interfere with a dispute unless I was asked to do so by the union concerned. I repeat that in no single instance since my Ministry has been set up has anyone on my premises ever interfered with the existing machinery set up for this very purpose. As far as I am concerned, I should be very sorry to say that that had happened, because collective

bargaining is a long recognised principle in this country, and I have had from this particular union the very greatest assistance with regard to the production of coal. I really cannot go into the merits of this dispute at the moment, because it is a matter which, as I say, must be left to the machinery which exists. All I would say is that the hon. Gentleman's accounts of the proceedings on the whole are accurate. But he talks about victimisation. Where I quarrel with him is that he charges the Controller for Scotland, wrongly, without any justification whatever, of being a party to a policy to cut the rates of that company. He has shown no tittle of evidence for that. In the first instance, the dispute, as the hon. Gentleman himself said, at the men's request went to arbitration.

Mr. Gallacher: At the request of or endorsed by.

Major Lloyd George: At the request of the men. What is to be the position, if, when an arbitration has decided against a party, that party will not accept it? What is to become of any bargaining at all if you say, "I accept arbitration," and you have a reservation in your own mind that you will only accept it if it goes your own way?

Mr. Gallacher: Do not misrepresent the men. The men were in favour of a neutral chairman deciding on the question of 1s. 6d. or 1s. 9d., or anything between 1s. 6d. and 1s. 9d., and if that had been the issue, as the men understood it was to be, in going before a neutral chairman, there would have been no complaint.

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Gentleman himself in the course of his remarks stated that the owners' original offer was 1s. 6d.

Mr. Gallacher: 1s. 5d. rising to 1s. 6d.

Major Lloyd George: Naturally when you go to arbitration all previous proposals are removed. He said so himself.

Mr. Gallacher: The men did not understand it.

Major Lloyd George: I am not suggesting that the men did not take that point of view. I am arguing the particular point of view of arbitration; whether it had been said that a neutral chairman was to arbitrate between 1s. 6d. and 1s. 9d. is another story. He was there to arbitrate


about rates, and he came to the conclusion that 1s. 5d. was a fair rate. I am not asking whether it was or was not, but I am saying that that was the decision of the neutral chairman. It would be a deplorable state of affairs if you got into the state of mind, "If you do not like a decision, you do not accept it." You could not get anywhere, whether a trade union or an individual. He went on further to say that, as a resentment against this, the men followed a decision of ca'canny, and later they signed a statement that they would not use a policy of ca'canny, which, here again, rightly or wrongly, they were alleged to have pursued, and I must say the company dismissed them again. There is an appeal pending at the moment with regard to the men who have been dismissed a second time. I believe it is to be heard some time this week, and therefore I do not think it would be an advantage to pursue that point at the moment. They have taken advantage of the right given under the Order to appeal to the local appeal board, and that appeal will be heard, and they can put their side of the case, and the hon. Member knows that, if they make out their case, they are reinstated. Therefore I do not think it would be wise for us at this moment to discuss that any further.

Mr. Sloan: What about the medical examination?

Major Lloyd George: I had no notice about that; but I think it has been cancelled.

Mr. Gallacher: The men say that the order transferring them to another district is cancelled but that they have been ordered to report for a medical examination.

Major Lloyd George: As I have said, I had no notice that this point was to be raised, and it is a little difficult to reply offhand. My information is that the examination has been cancelled, but I will check it before I sit down.

Mr. Sloan: Thank you.

Major Lloyd George: It has just been confirmed by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that the order for medical examination has been cancelled. In any case the appeal has not been heard. I am most anxious to do all I possibly can to see that any ill-feeling is

removed, but I am bound to say that it does no good to create the impression that the officers under my control—and in my judgment the one in question is an honourable, independent man—are doing something for some interests other than the interests of the State. It does not help the feeling we have in mind. I know the hon. Member for West Fife does his best to get the output up, and if the company had bludgeoned its way through the machinery for adjusting wages I think there would have been something to be said for it. But the fact is that an independent chairman was accepted by both sides. Having had the award, I think we are entitled to expect that it should be carried out. It is of the greatest importance at the present time, not only to see that no injustice is done, but also to see that every effort is made to produce the coal that is necessary for this country. In one way the hon. Gentleman has rendered a service, because he has enabled me to get up and say that although I recognise, as I always have, the right of Members of Parliament in regard to their constituents, still more is it the function of the machinery that exists to deal with wages and conditions of men without interference, unless by the Ministry of Labour.

Mr. Murray: Are the men now asking 1s. 5d. a ton? If they are, has the Minister any record of the wages that are being earned at this rate?

Major Lloyd George: I could not say without notice.

Mr. McLean Watson: There is one question arising out of this matter that will concern the mining Members of this House, and that is that part of the machinery that was set up when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman took office—the machinery dealing with pit production committees. We had pit production committees before, but a change was made, this new machinery was set up, and we were assured, and hoped, that the pit production committees would do something to keep the wheels running smoothly in the coal pits. But from what has been going on in my own area it does not seem that these committees are performing any useful function in that respect. Not only have they been brushed aside in this dispute, but it seems that the


Miners' Union itself has been brushed aside——

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Member really has no right to say that the Miners' Union has been brushed aside. On the contrary, it has never been out of it.

Mr. Watson: I may not express myself clearly. I know that the Miners' Union had been in this. I should know, because I am the only Member of the House who is a member of the Fife Miners' Union.

Major Lloyd George: The hon. Member said it had been brushed aside.

Mr. Watson: The House heard what my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) said, that while the dispute secretary was handling this dispute at Bowhill, he objected even to his own colleagues in the union coming into the matter.

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. I do not want the hon. Member to misrepresent what I said. I said that the dispute secretary had objected to my coming into this matter. I said that he objected when any other official came into it.

Mr. Watson: That is exactly what I said. My idea of what should happen when a dispute arises in a coalfield is that, first of all, whether it be a dispute affecting an individual, a section or a pit, it should go to the Miners' Union delegate, and from him to the miners' office, to be dealt with officially by the miners. I have been a Member of the House longer than my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife, and I have never sought to interfere in the affairs of the Fife Miners' Union. I have allowed them to manage their own affairs. My hon. Friend was quite entitled to do what he considered right; the colliery is in his constituency, and as far as I am concerned, he is entitled to do as he thinks right. I am trying to impress upon the House what

has been and what ought to be the procedure for dealing with disputes.
There is this much to be kept in mind with regard to this matter, that if the Fife Coal Company have made up their mind to break wages in the County of Fife, or in the area covered by the company, they have more than Bowhill to deal with. That is not the only highly paid colliery under the Fife Coal Company; there are more. It may be true that they are trying it on Bowhill first before trying it on any of the other collieries. There is no trouble at the moment at the other highly paid collieries, nor has there been for a very considerable time. Therefore, it may not be simply because of the high wages earned at Bowhill colliery that this trouble has arisen. We have the pit production committees, whose sole object was to be to increase production. The question of dealing with absenteeism was taken out of their hands so that they could concentrate on production. Evidently they have taken no part in this matter, and while it is true the matter has been before the Fife Miners' Union, that does not exhaust the machinery at the disposal of the miners, because in addition to the Fife Miners' Union there is the National Union of Scottish Mineworkers to whom the dispute could have been referred. If they could not deal with it, in the last resort there was the British Miners' Federation. All that machinery was there to deal with the dispute. While it may be true that something had to be done right away on the spot, at the same time it will be deplorable if the situation at Bowhill is not cleared up. In addition, there are other collieries in the county where there has been trouble for a good long time, and it would be a blessing, not only for the industry, but for the pit production committees——

It being the hour appointed for the Adjournment of the House, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.